Avalon in Azeroth
by vossrothgar
Summary: AU Harry Potter, for nearly 15 years the forces of the Burning Legion have ravaged the world. When the largest pocket of human survivors enact a desperate plan to save the world, they start something that will shift the balance of conflict and change the lives of people in two worlds forever. Rated M just in case.
1. Just another day at the Office, redux

**Disclamer:**Unless your new to this site you know that i don't own any of this, Blizzard and JK are just nice enough to let us play in their sandboxes. Hope you enjoy looking at my castles!

*An: "Ulaid" on E.S. Posthumus' "Unearthed" album seems an appropriate musical score in my twisted head for reading this. *

**Channel Observation station #4 (Cliffs of Dover, near former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 4th, 2010, 19:30 GMT.**

Wind whipped across the water and up the cliff face creating a small vortex that caused the canvas walls of the field structures to flutter. While cutting down on most of the wind inside the huts the stronger gusts would draw a few glances from the various personnel shouting over the noise into mirror communication stations, and silvered devices that were monitoring ward strength and various detection spells.

Once assured the whole thing wasn't going to just blow right over the cliff, they quickly returned to their tasks. It only got worse away from the shelter of the portable structures, tugging at the clothing at the men and women manning observation scopes near the cliff edge.

One particular man stood seeming as unaffected as the chalky cliffs, as he peered through his field glasses. His short disordered black hair wiped about the bits of his grey and green fatigues not held secure by his blood splattered smoke-stained armor. If it wasn't for the black and faintly greenish color to the blood, one would think he was seriously injured. The only part of his body not covered in some sort of battle filth was his upper left arm; where a golden griffin perched on a tower was splayed on a spotless field of blood red crimson.

A glint of orange sparkled, on a hilt made of silver, playing across the burnished metal and glittering ruby inlay of a nearly meter long hand-and-a-half "bastard sword". Strapped over his shoulder, it was a blade easily identified by anyone who'd spent time at Hogwart's Military Academy. A smaller sword was strapped to his waist along with assorted melee weapons, interspersed between bulging pouches, wherever they could be hung.

Grey leather shown between iron plates studded with bands of brass engraved runes that seemed to almost glow in with their own light. Covering his torso and upper arms, as a segmented breastplate, smaller pieces of similar armor covered his forearms, thighs, and shins. Heavy boots iron capped on the toes finished the look. A 6 foot long shaft of dark mahogany wood with a series of copper and brass inlays ran its length; it rested atop the rucksack at his feet. He seemed completely unaware of the breeze however as he studied the French coast through his field glasses.

Smoke and ash hung along the coast of France almost like a fog, creating a muted color to the sky as far as the eye could see along the horizon. The size of the fire necessary to generate a cloud like that would have been almost unimaginable to most people even a few years ago. Sadly, few living today had an issue imagining cause of such destruction, mostly from personal experience with the demon hordes of the aptly named Burning Legion that now ravaged most of the world.

With a small sigh, Harry Potter lowered his binoculars and rubbed his green eyes with the free one. As always he was distractedly tempted to rub the lightning bolt shaped scar that now ran down through his eye and ended an inch or so below it on his cheek. He suppressed the urge, and depressing a small button on the top of the cylinder, and put the glasses back to his eyes; even from this distance he could easily see the shimmering rainbow wall that were the Avalon wards.

Completed in 2005, and arguably the greatest working of magic in recorded history, the Avalon wards were a series of siege level warding that completely surrounded the former British Isles.

Utilizing impressive geomancy rituals Harry had no hope of understanding, a series of artificial islands were created in the seas around Britain and Ireland. Tunnels then dug with goblin assistance linked the new islands to the seabed in locations up to twenty miles off coast. Sunk into the various ley lines that spider webbed across the crust of the earth, ward stones covered in complex rune formations, and with the revolutionary idea to be banded with copper for conduction, linked to "Ward Towers" on the surface.

With massive amounts of magic directed up from the very ground, tuned to reinforce the warding and directed out into the atmosphere. It had taken 10 years at the costs of thousands of lives in desperate holding actions to draw attention elsewhere. Now completed it was nearly impossible to physically enter the Isles.

With the exception of a few arranged "point to point" locations, such as between vital military defence related buildings. Portkey, floo and apparition was neigh impossible in the newly dubbed Avalon. A veritable heap of anti-magical travel wards, crisscrossed and overlapped the islands, to the point the infamously paranoid Deputy Minister for Internal Security Alastor Moody, was heard reputed to have once called them "excessive".

Actual physical barrier wards while possible would have been extremely fragile, difficult to construct, and broken easily under sustained assaults, on scale needed for the project. Instead a series of classic "Do no Harm" lines, tied with confoundus, and repelling wards, would direct anyone actually seeking the Isle's to be turned around and aimlessly lost unable to reorient themselves to the island.

Layered on top of this elaborate arrangement, was a complex environmental illusion enchantment. Various spells anchored with specially created wards designed to hide the Isles from view, the effects combined to make anyone with knowledge of the landmass to see nothing but mist and fog.

The fact that this is exactly how the Isle of Avalon was reported in myth wasn't lost on anyone with working knowledge of the defence scheme. The only methods of entry, completely free of dealing with the wards were to travel through the channel tunnel to France and two goblins dug tunnels to Norway and Iceland respectively.

The former United Kingdom had become a near impregnable stronghold that was isolated from demon incursion. For the last 5 years, since the last wards were completed, remnants both magical and mundane had been in a fighting withdrawal to the three tunnel sites, evacuating those that could be saved to the now named Avalon Sanctuary or more commonly called the Isles of Avalon.

Looking with his field glasses in "enhanced mode", Harry was able to easily see the waves of ambient magic radiating from the towers on the "Warding Islands". The massive construct created an opaque screen completely obscuring everything beyond it to his enhanced sight. It was so powerful that it was actually causing him a headache with its intensity and making his eyes water.

Canceling the sight, Harry took a last look over the water as his eyes refocused. The sun setting had bathed the cliff with a soft orange glow, and while not visible to even the magnified eye, the firestorm fueling the destruction on the opposite coast was providing malevolent backlight. It provided potent evidence that the channel tunnel was no longer serviceable.

"Bet the Legionnaires made the bastards bleed and pay hard for it." Following the subtle clipped accent, Harry turned to his right. Warrant officer class two Rothgar Widerberg, giving credit to his Scandinavian ancestry, standing at muscular 6'4" he towered over Harry's 5' 10" frame, he stood with a semi-relaxed posture that screamed authority while similarly also showing a position that minimized effort. His short cropped blonde hair was silvering at the temples, and his tanned face was finely lined betraying his age. Set into this was a stern set of light brown eyes that while not accusing certainly didn't miss any details.

Similarly dressed in even more battle stained grey-green camouflage, his steel and brass reinforced armor looked almost incongruous with the modern camo patterning. While not a magical the repelling spells woven into his own sigil kept the armband affixed to his left arm as spotless as Harry's.

The large wicked looking double bladed axed rested its nearly four foot shaft on the ground against his own rucksack reinforced his modern Viking image. The short sword on his left hip showed strong signs of use and wear, but otherwise was in still good working order. It was case of modern to medieval contrast for the 38 caliber revolver holstered on his right. Harry was impressed that he was able to still find enough ammunition to justify bothering to carry the thing.

Most modern fire arms had been abandoned in Avalon, due to a combination of lack of overall effectiveness on the larger demonic bodies and the lack of available ammunition. Instead non magical soldiers were equipped with steel and iron weapons straight out of the 12th century, for close in fighting; the iron was able to negate the poorly understood fel energies that seemed suffused through demons and gave them and inhuman resistance to physical damage.

Even so most demons are larger and stronger than humans, making entering a melee fight with one a daunting prospect. What has truly allowed the army a somewhat level playing field to continue to battle the Burning Legion was a breakthrough in the nearly abandoned ancient discipline of Artificery.

Utilizing carefully oriented rune arrangements, carved into a specific set of mediums, yield what is now called the ambient collection runic array, or Tesla stamp.

Harry's schoolhood friend Hermione Granger was a leading researcher for the military's R&D section. Her love of knowledge prompted by near limitless resources and funding the government was throwing at her, tempered by the horrors being visited upon man every day, had forged her into a driven cutting edge researcher.

While being forcibly aged beyond years like most of Harry's classmates, she still retained a certain need to try and hammer knowledge into his head. During a dinner back in 2007, Harry had made the mistake of saying he'd take the word of people smarter than him on the Isle wards, since the theory was beyond him.

That eventually to lead three of the longest days of his life, as he and the entire command chain of his unit was ordered to sit through an in depth briefing on the features and major functions of the screen. Harry from time to time has the pleasure of witnessing the pained winces of the gruff 1st Sergeant Widerberg, whenever he hears anything that sounds remotely like "Granger".

Aside from small moments of comedy, Harry did actually manage to gleam some understanding from that course. During the afternoon of the second day, Hermonie and her fellows got off onto a tangent of alternate applications for runes, as well as base theory of man that revitalized the field, Tesla.

20th century inventor and rather unpopular wizard, Nicola Tesla, whose research, laid the ground work for the famous and widely utilized runic array bearing his name. In one of his more extreme theories, proposed that the reason electrical devices failed near magic was due to electrical energy and magical forces would compete to occupy the same space, with natural and stable form of magic winning out to the unstable nature of electricity.

Much like light, magic can apparently have traits of things it's not, like electron particles. It's why magic can be channeled through copper, brass, silver and gold. When someone asked why Iron wasn't it set off a long tirade about incompatibilities of the "fey coefficient", Harry's eyes had glazed over and if asked denied that someone pointed out he started drooling.

At the time his experiments that boarded on mixing muggle and magical technologies, nearly got him imprisoned by both groups. Also his in his fervor he seeming managed to upset influential people on both sides of the statute, leading to his marginalization and eventual obscurity.

His magical work, nearly forgotten, faded from memory, until being rediscovered in 1996. While dismissed and ridiculed during his life time, the new state of the world lent credence to the old maxim, "necessity is the mother of Invention."

Apparently Tesla had been a visionary, based on his principles and half finished designs an arrangement of runes could be created that would act in a similar manner to a focus, a failed "power station" he had built in New Jersey, that had been shut down before he broke the Statute of Secrecy, apparently lent the inspiration for the "Ward Towers" that so effectively hid the Isles.

Working on a further extrapolation while was R&D looking into wand lore, they we're able to fashion a smaller scale man portable focus. These carefully inscribed patterns of runes were able to gather magic and redirect it for spell crafting.

This stored"energy" was able to be directed down length of wood and conductive metal to "shoot" a spell. The overall effect was a creation of a magic gun for lack of a better term. While each construct was limited on one spell, it allowed non magical people to wield offense magic, usually a piercing or blasting curse that was actually stronger than most wizards were able to generate with a wand.

Fashioned in a manner reminiscent of a musket, the runic powered firearm was dubbed the Tesla Directed Focus mark one. The mundane soldiers had taken to calling them "boomsticks".

The actual magic gathering of the array was generally rather slow, something to do with inherent resistance of magic being channeled by a non living source via runic manipulation, Harry may have completely fallen asleep during that bit.

Overall theory stating while reasonably powerful, the "boomsticks" would manage no more than perhaps one to two "shots" per minute. Personally Harry agreed with most soldiers that if it allowed them to not have to get in close to a demon, it could take as long as it damn well pleased. In practice however that rate of fire wasn't fixed.

Demons bleed off a type of corruption, something that not even Hermione understood, so Harry didn't even bother. It was currently being buzz worded as "fel magic". It wasn't magic, most demons didn't have magic, and Harry had been down range of enough of the ones that did to be an expert on the difference. It was however about as well understood by the common man, so the name stuck.

Whatever it was, the buggers practically oozed the stuff, almost like a person sweats and breaths. The greater the number of or general size of the demon, the more of this energy is bled off into the environment. While interesting, this fact is of little use to the general magic user since the "fel magic" would corrupt and damage their living magical core if tapped into directly.

As stated living creatures are twisted by the fel, but rune arrays aren't alive. Seemingly unaffected, Tesla stamps seem to not actually be confined to channeling magic. While not actually the same, apparently in a way no solider cared to question, the focus' were able to convert Fel into a nearly identical offensive spell.

The fact that the stronger the demon the quicker and more effective the weapon become. Point of fact, Hermione once mentioned, if it wasn't for the high concentration of ambient "magic" on earth due to the saturation from the Burning Legion's presence, it would possibly take hours or days to gather energy in the blasting rods between spells. That the demons' very existence fuels the weapons that have killed them by the dozens...well he still smiles from the laugh he had at that revealed irony.

Unfortunately despite the breakthrough, many cities had already been ravaged before its development, and full scale production didn't begin until late 2006.

Even if it is now a limitedly tapped resource, for years the Fel simply bled off into the environment, playing havoc with electrical grids and computer systems worldwide, the destruction that generated was only furthered by the actual demons themselves.

Mundane armies bereft of communications, supply lines, and most of their advanced weaponry were forced to engage Legion elements with small arms, and generally unsupported infantry units. The incurred massive losses effectively gutted the operational fighting forces worldwide.

Also while able to bring down the demon leaders by the dozen and the lesser creatures by the thousands, frankly the Legion never seemed to run out of reinforcements. With a rapidly declining strength and the number of hold out enclaves in "demon country" shrinking by the day, it was determined that the only way to save even a portion of humanity was to draw back to a secure location and try and wait the demons out.

Again while not fully understood, they somehow feed on life force and magic, which they gathered from living beings like humans, goblins and house elves. If they could be cut off from their supply, the theory was that they would either leave to whence they came, or starve. Hence the establishments of Avalon ward line.

'Hopefully the theory will work out, we've certainly paid enough for it' Harry thought to himself as he took in the burning coastline on the horizon.

**Channel Tunnel Entrance, Coquelles, near Calais Northern, September 4th, 2010, 9:30 GMT.**

Captain Harry Potter, company A, Griffin's Guard regiment, 1st Avalon Division, rolled his shoulders and neck as he surveyed the fleeting press of desperate humanity that signified, the final stages of the European evacuation.

Since late in 1995, roving bands of Legion forces were an all too common sight in Western Europe. Aside from several thousand square miles centered somewhere around Romania and Transylvania known as the "black zone", the Burning Legion did not seem to lay claim to territory.

General operating tactics involved small to moderately large roving bands of "lesser demons" generally under 15 feet in size, minimal to no magical aptitude and a rudimentary intelligence somewhere on the level of a wolf or dog. Just smart enough to be trouble. They had little grasp of situation awareness, and aside from their general resilience weren't overly difficult to dispatch.

These pockets of demons, were often escorted by larger swarms of "enthralled", never seen on earth before the Legion's appearance, these man size and slightly larger beings of varying descriptions, seemed to be slaved to the will of the demons they followed.

While arguably capable of independent higher level reasoning and in some cases magic use; it appears that whatever the method of control, generated a massive almost uncontrollable rage and need for violence. Easily provoked, and other than compensating for their alarming numbers, they were easily dealt with via ambush.

As society began to breakdown in the late 90's most people abandoned any sense of normalcy, instead retreating to the security of, often hastily fortified, armed camps referred to as "freeholds."

Initially, a temporary measure set up to help conserve military or civil police forces by the start of the new century, they had evolved in to more of a medieval type strong hold. The civilians converted to crude men-at-arms, were in many cases able to cohesively fend off the lesser bands of demons, with minimal loss of life.

What became the issue is anytime these freeholds successfully repelled a raid, they drew attention to themselves. Enter the "greater demons", larger in size from 20ft to the truly massive dimensions. Most were capable of some sort of magic usage, and armed with a human level intelligence, they were often able to direct larger hosts to hammer down any resistance that drew their eye.

The systematic elimination of survivors spiraled out from the "black zone" throughout most of Eurasia, and in some cases even to the Isle's itself.

Back before the wards were completed the Burning Legion had been able to call down a sort of Demonic Artillery strike seemingly haphazardly anywhere in the world. Flaming rocks of Fel green, would land down like a small scale meteor storm killing just about anything in range, and leveling any unfortified structure in the way. From the rubble, eldritch constructs of rock and fire, would then rise to lay waste to the surrounding countryside until they where put down or burned out.

Thankfully some part of the siege warding prevented them from targeting the Isle's ending that particular threat but the thousands killed before they went up were enough.

After Avalon became and effective safe zone, granting the newly established central government of the Isles a place to organize and plan instead of reeling like most people were. A concerted effort was launched to contact and survey the remaining governments and scattered freeholds to try and establish a counter offensive.

In early 2007 after nearly two years, a rough assessment was finally put together, it painted a bleak picture. Europe was in ruins, the landmass had been severely depopulated, most of the surviving people had relocated to Germany and France, and sporadic rumors of small military bands still operating further east went largely unconfirmed.

The rest of Eurasia didn't fare much better, broken effectively in two, sizable mundane forces heavily supported by European wizards, still held out in Scandinavia, while the balance of mundane survivors had fled across the Himalayas into China.

That was a bit of a mixed blessing, apparently the Demon's lacked a plan beyond follow the food, so when significant numbers of people fled to the highly populated areas of Africa and South East Asia….

Apparently the reason there were only small bands wandering Western Europe is the Legion Host at large was far too busy slaughtering on the other side of the world, the residents of former Great Britain, despite the ravages of last decade had it "easy".

Faced with this reality, a hard decision was made. The threat of the Legion shifting focus made thoughts of holding Europe impossible. With this in mind, Operation "Safe Harbor" was launched.

Over the next three years any and all people who could be contacted were informed of the "Avalon Sanctuary". While there is talk of creating similar holdfasts in Australia and perhaps in the far southern reaches of South American, the logistical and depth of preparations required to repeat the warding, means for the foreseeable future Avalon was the only option.

Flotillas to Iceland, from the Americas, Southern Africa, and the Pacific Rim quickly swelled the population back up past prewar levels. As of last official count, the population of Avalon was hovering somewhere near 90 million. Even with the hasty additions of to the coastline in 2006, and creation of two sizeable islands in 2007 and 2008, to the south and west of Ireland, crowding was looking to be an issue. In the face, such wholesale loss, most people were happy to have a problem like that to tackle.

Harry turned away organized from the small field of chaos below, distracting himself by surveying his unit's position. Company A, was a bit of a misnomer, officially listed as a "reinforced company" by British army definition; it was far too large fit even that classification. Being said, it probably didn't really matter as nothing else was traditional about the company so why should its size be.

Griffin's Guard is what is being referred to in the halls of central command as a heavy shock regiment; specialized in using strong wizards wielding large scale destructive magic. Constituted of six heavy infantry line companies numbering almost one hundered and fifty troopers a piece, they were supported by two "Mage Artillery" companies, one of which was Harry's bloated monster of a command.

Each "mage" company was formed around spell casters using strong hammer blow strikes of spells originally made to crack castle walls, against demonic forces surrounded by specially warded tower shields wielded by infantry in phalanx much like the ancient Greeks and Romans.

In open field combat the greater regiment, it was effectively the equivalent of a formation of heavy battle tanks, each company able to stand to toe to toe with even a Dread Lord.

They had been the heavy support to keep what passed for the collective European military commands from collapsing during the final withdrawal. Drawing the marauding bands of demons into direct action and slaughtering them whole sale; the action of which helped draw attention away from the increasingly sudden lack of humans in Europe.

Racking up more successes than any other unit in the European campaign, and holding the divisional record of 3 confirmed Dread Lord kills, Company A the self proclaimed "Potter's Prowlers" had seemly absorbed Harry's ability to pull off the impossible and make it look easy much like their leader. It was a fact the more than 250 "Prowlers" took as a mark of pride.

Final order of battle had slotted company A to be one of the last to withdrawal through the channel tunnel before the combat engineers and wizard sappers collapsed the whole thing, effectively sealing off the renamed Isles of Avalon from western Europe and heading off the Burning Legion's advance.

In fact being considered an "elite" unit they were assigned the potentially suicidal job to act as the rear guard at the tunnel entrance. This was sadly a state that the "prowlers" had a great deal of practice with. Actually the main command often instructed that company A be put into the thickest fighting since they had an attribute that made them stand out from the rest of the combined forces, they had good moral.

While most units we're comprised by left over units that had made it to the safe zone, and needed to be mixed and matched with other "scraps" and conscripts, to form a combat ready command. "Potter's Prowlers" was actually the only all volunteer unit in the Avalon military.

Actually, known to just about everyone except for Harry, the Prowlers had an unofficial waiting list of people who hoped to be assigned. Not only did company A have one of the higher success rates, they had one of the lowest casualty rates even with their often high risk assignments.

It was an often held belief that serving under Potter's command would allow you to do some damage to the Legion, while actually having a chance to live long enough to make a difference. With Captain Potter watching your back to ready to smite down any demon stupid enough to try take you from "his" company.

This high profile reputation, as anyone who really knew Harry would tell you, would completely horrify him. So nobody bothered to fill him in on the matter.

Having prepared their position for a holding action already the company fighting position was entrenched in a 6ft tall earth berm overlooking the tunnel entrance from directly behind and above the entrance ramp. This allowed in effect a redoubt, a line of infantry with large tower shields formed an effective wall on top of the berm.

Kneeling behind the shields with them dug slightly into the berm allowed the runic arrays built into the shields to link with the temporary ward stones, buried by the wizard sappers, in the berm itself. The arrangement, allowed a large amount of magic to be channeled up into the shield wall.

The traditional "Tower" designed shields when overlapped linked to each other via an imbedded with cross hatch work of brass bands, upon which a variation of Tesla Stamp would direct absorbed magic and energy into a counter-offensive form of the sheid spell.

The _protego ardebit in inferno_ was a castle warding variation of the well known and utilized shield spell. Originally designed in the 6th century, it was intended for defense within choke points of a fortification. Technically unable to be cast by a single user, it was weaker than its unaltered variant, "inferno" wasn't able to repel nearly as much magical energy, instead, it also provided mild armor reinforcement to attuned pieces of armor boosting physical protection, increasing the likely lifespan of the Towers.

The real kicker was as the name implies that the shield actually burns anything living that comes into contact with it. The trade off for a more "physical" shield was almost no contest, especially considered the general rarity of demonic magic users.

With the temporary ward stones providing an achor point for the warding, and additional power boost, the normally sizable shield wall became a _protego_ shield dome covering the whole company. Kneeling behind the shield bearers a full quarter of the company's infantry would also kneel with eight foot pikes ready to fend off close range attackers.

It was an overall variation of an infantry formation known as the hedgehog, effective for cavalry charges. Since the lesser demons like fel guards, hounds, Shivarras tended to charge in a similar mass style it worked effectively against them as well. Over the shoulders of the shield bearers the rest of the company's mundane troops stood with their "boomsticks" ready to cut down any forces attempting to get close to charging up the berm or charging down to the tunnel entrance.

Down in the level ground surrounded by the berm the company's wizard component stood ready to bring down heavy spells like an artillery barrage. This modification was affectionately known by WO2 Widerberg as the pincushion since in his words, "you'd usually only have to deal with little pricks when using it."

Harry stood at the lip of berm near the company standard bearer on the side of the formation that overlooked the general rise of the access road up to the top of the tunnel mound, the company was "facing" the road, in perperation for their own march down to the tunnel opening.

For the moment taking in the last milling groups of mass exodus being funneled through the large rock formation that now flanks either side of the tunnel entrance. The Channel tunnel was originally built for use with trains, and specifically high speed trains, as such the entrance to the over 30 mile long tunnel came out of a small man made hill, that had a broad open gentle sloping plain leading into in; in other words an absolute nightmare of a place to defend against a massive infantry force that can physically and numerically overwhelm your forces easily.

So for the previous three days since the company moved in on July 31st, Harry had the company busy with his personal birthday present, carving out and arranging earthen mounds stretching out in 45 degree angles from the tunnel mouth for as tall and far as the combined divisional forces could manage, ending in a smaller berm box on the right for infantry that will be covering the Prowlers as they pull up stakes.

In addition, piles of boulders and mounds of earth were added around the company's berm perimeter which would cause any force to break into small groups and maneuver around them to attack his force. After all if he could make the defense of this location easier, he could drastically improve the odds that he would live to see his next birthday. Harry couldn't think of a better gift to give himself.

The denizens of Europe had been slowly trickling through to England now Avalon, for the last 3 years, but with the loss of communication and assumed fall of the Indo-Chinese resistance in June pressure on the European front had increased dramatically, causing the steady trickle to become small flood.

Fighting the urge shake his head in bleak remembrance at the small mob that was milling below, it wasn't officially confirmed but estimates had been leaked out that in the last 15 years of fighting the earth's population had been reduced by as much as 90%, if not greater.

With the pockets of holdouts in the extremes of North and South America, Africa and Australia, that would mean that this evacuation would likely be one of the largest groupings of people not under wards in Eurasia. It would be like a massive beacon to anyone looking for life force. Considering the lengths the Legion has gone to sate their hunger for life, it wasn't comforting thought.

Harry was roused from his melancholy thoughts by the bugle call and red flare of the outrider watch. Red flares only meant one thing, Legion spotted. With a nod to W02 Widerberg, Harry hefted his staff and walked down to center of the berm directly over the tunnel opening to the sound of Widerberg's bellow "to Arms! You damned bastards, get up to the line, time to earn all that hot food you've been eating!"

Counter point to the shouts of the NCO's and the grunts and jingles of equipment being readied were Harry's escorts, which quietly slipped into flanking positions as he rejoined the mage platoon. Standing behind his right shoulder at 5'6" was Staff Sergeant Lavender Brown, no matter being the shortest of their little grouping she may had been the one most of the men were intimated by.

Possessing beautiful golden blond hair that seemed to look like spun gold tied up in a braid that could hang loose to just below her shoulders, and standard leather reinforced iron armor did nothing to hide a stunningly fantastic figure; she appeared to be more likely kept as a centerfold for soldiers rather than one herself.

That is until one looked up to her face that was constantly scanning for threats. Sky blue eyes showing nothing but the promise of pain laid in a once beautiful face marred by long claw marks reaching from above her left eye across and down to where they ended in a series of scars that covered the front of her throat.

There were several rumors in the company as to how she ended up with her scars, but what was agreed on is that no matter what caused it, her sole purpose seemed to be to watch the Captain's back.

She showed up out of the blue, the same time as then Senior Lt. Potter when the company was formed. When bumped to Captain he kicked her up to Sergeant, much to the displeasure of the established older soldiers. At first she simply ignored the others and their speculation to how she "earned" her rank, until she overheard someone badmouth the Captain. After putting him and his three squad mates into the hospital nearly beating them to death with her bare hands, they learned to keep their comments to themselves.

Over his left shoulder, in sharp counter point, the towering and generally affable form of Color Corporal Rubeus Hagrid. Officially Hagrid wasn't even part of the army; his rank of Color Corporal is purely on Potter's declaration.

He had a friendly face, topped with a mid length hair that seemed to be as untamed as the Captain's as well as a close cropped beard but of salt and pepper coloration. His large frame was covered head to foot in thick heavy leather and chainmail, it's been noted he seemed be almost as strong and tough as the lesser demons and had no qualms about closing in standing toe to toe with them. That sort of bald courage and its use to pull several necks off the chopping block quickly endeared him to the regular troopers.

The same day SSgt Brown, appeared he did as well, shortly before the regiment was deployed to the continental front, for Operation Haven. Technically since he wasn't enlisted with the Avalon Divisions, he shouldn't be allowed with the company.

A man of few words, he was always amiable to helping out with even the most unpleasant of tasks, his loyalty to Potter was unquestionable, and with how effective he is with the nearly twelve foot tall halberd he wields in close in fighting, no one is in a hurry to give a damn about it.

As the trio reached their position the sounds of clanging metal shouts of men and inhuman shrieks wafted over the countryside from an indeterminate direction. Somewhere, combat elements had been engaged.

**Channel Tunnel Entrance, Coquelles, near Calais Northern, September 4th, 2010, 11:20 GMT.**

For the last half hour infantry and various scout support units had been marching into the main encampment. A few units had engaged scattered "light elements", small bands composed of only a handful of lesser demons and their thralls. No major exchanges had occurred, which meant the Legion was probing, never comforting to be shown your enemy is bothering to use their head.

Around the tunnel, injured, the final few militia and select units had continued to withdrawal moving under the channel to the Isle's. A flash of color caught Harry's eye, and he bit back a curse as watched the divisional standard, a silver castle on a blue field under 4 stars, of the 1st Avalon Division, followed by the familiar sigil gold Griffin on a tower, though this one with two stars overhead denoting regimental staff, pass underneath his company's redoubt.

A sizeable Legion force had been reported to be trailing some of the smaller groups pulling in from Paris, volunteers had broken off to try and lead them away from the order of withdrawal. That had been on July 29th.

Since then they had been suspiciously absent, with his luck Captain Potter was still expecting to show up sometime this morning when the Division was broken up for march and relatively easy pickings.

The original plan was for Company A to maintain "overwatch" allowing maximum field of fire for the mages over the open country side, to help with this the scout cavalry were to maintain a picket at the near edge of visibility. It was hoped that far out they'd act as an early warning giving the Prowlers extra time to bring maximum damage to bear. Once it was time, the scouts would back in, followed by the Prowlers, both under cover of 2 companies of heavy infantry from the Griffin Guards.

However when it was only 1st Avalon and a few French reminant forces remaining to traverse the channel, and the expected Legion assault failed to appear. General Steele had amended the battle plan. Now company A was to await the scouts being recalled, then to pull out with a light screening force composed of mostly leftover Légion étrangère.

While this is a much quicker way to get the unit through the tunnel since it involves almost a third less men and the French being, essentially small unit skirmishers, that could them to gaggle through the tunnel quickly. It also leaves the group far more open to being overrun. To top it all off, the French weren't in what anyone would call "good" shape.

Légion étrangère known in most of the western world as the French Foreign Legion, were considered at one time crack troops, tough enough to do the jobs most others were afraid to do. That unfortunately was a decade ago and a much different world. As evidenced by the fifty or so men manning the redoubt built for over three hundred.

A product of "modern" military philosophy, where individual troopers could maintain an impressive level of fire superiority with an assault rifle, today they were reduced to essentially a light ranged attack group. While that granted them I high degree of manipulability, the lack of screening melee infantry meant they could be easily overrun by the mass charges the Legion loved to favor.

They'd also been fighting a losing war for over ten years, were exhausted, battered and were poorly equipped for any sort of action. A quick once over showed they lacked the heavy armor to ward off the inhumanly strong blows most demons were capiable of, standard issue equipment for Avalon line forces. Also they were still carrying standard issue French Military assaults rifles, and Harry had heavy doubts they had much if any extra ammunition.

Potter had managed to beg "boomsticks" from the Griffin Guards Colonel when the General wasn't around to notice, specifically modeled on old style firearms for ease of transition to, he hoped they'd be able to figure them out with only a quick demonstration for training.

As the sound of boots faded, Harry looked to his signal man, "Well that's it, signal the scouts in, hopefully we can pack up this little picnic before the ants come swarming in."

WO2 Widerberg, having joined him just a moment ago merely grunted in response, Hagrad and Sergeant Brown might as well been made from stone for all indication they heard, simply continuing to scan out from the vantage point.

Turning away from the orderly march, Harry shouted over his shoulder "Lieutenant Creevey!" A slightly younger looking man with light sandy brown hair standing about Harry's height broke rank from his position in the wizard platoon and made his way up the berm. The senior lieutenant pips on his collar glinted in the sunlight as he stood at attention to Harry's left a silent and unintentional acknowledgment that he is also as intimidated as the troopers of SSgt Brown. "Sir?"

Harry gently smiled at the eager look on his executive officer's face. Colin Creevey, had been a school acquaintance of Harry's, a year behind him in the same house at Hogwarts, he had started out as a nearly rabid fan, but he thankfully quickly grew out of that.

The strife of the Demon war invasion quickly sobered Colin to the realities of the world. His family home was in the middle of a "Demon blitz" bombardment in 1998. While he and his younger brother were at Hogwarts, his parents weren't so fortunate. Losing one's parents has a way of changing ones world view as Harry well knew.

At first Harry was hesitant to have him as his second in command but he's since proven his reliability, and the fact that he is perhaps the strongest wizard after Harry in the company makes him a valued addition to the "Wizard Artillery" company. "Colin, General Steele's command is mustered out, let's start prepping our own exfil, seems the Legion is cutting us a break, or maybe they caught sight of our banner and smartened up."

With a salute and smirks all around Lieutenant Creevey, rushed off to ensure the platoons were ready to march. Over the last three years operating throughout Europe, the legion had developed a healthy wariness when they saw the gold and red griffin standard.

Not fear per say, most doubted demons or their enthralled minions capable of such an emotion, but a wariness born of the primitive mind. That seeing that sigil meant pain and death for those dumb enough to challenge its strength directly.

They had a good reinforced firing position to cover the field, and were as well defended as they could be. It was the best of a suddenly crappy situation. Sadly, while the men company A may have gladly inherited "Potter's persistence" they also received his relationship with the demigod Murphy.

Just as the first parts of the scout outriders had made it about half way to the embankment, a massive hulking demon standing on four massive legs and standing at the size of a small skyscraper came down hard on the last of the picket lines from the south east raining death and fire, leading to an absolute rout.

This massive demon is known as a Pit Lord, the effective moving siege engines of the Burning Legion, to date no human structure mudane or magical has been known to withstand their onslaught. This creature was directly in mind when the final design of the Avalon wards were focused on avoidance instead of direct resistance.

Countless lesser demons and minions followed on the Pit Lord's heels, the limited screening forces of the divisional outriders were quickly overrun, the only good news being as scout troops they were all mounted and while horses are a poor substitute for a jeep or an IFV they certainly made it easier to outrun a demon on foot. Their numbers swarmed the broken unit and quickly started to try and run them down; most that were still far afield were cut down leaving just a handful of soldiers in a mad dash to the tunnel group. Harry's company watched the almost methodical slaughter from their dug in position at the tunnel entrance.

It was painful to watch but not only did Harry lack the numbers to charge out for them, but his primary task was to buy as much time for those fleeing to get out. Dull thuds and curses could be heard below their position, indicating that a few quicker demons had managed to already make the lower redoubt.

Fire rained down in support of the legionaries giving them a bit of breathing room, a glance showed they were apparently quick studies with the "boomsticks". From his watch point over the tunnel, Harry silently cursed Steele's impatient need to move out. However, just because he was tied to his post at the tunnel mouth, didn't mean he was out of options.

In the magical world that was, there were people who made a living fighting other spell casters in professional dueling circuits. Some people believe this is in turn made these individuals' excellent fighters. That is a very flawed assumption.

Professional duelers, while highly skilled, conditioned and generally rather magically gifted, utilize a myriad of spells in elaborate and sometimes very flashy demonstrations unique to each caster. To some extent the show of casting is just as important as casting.

Basic battle field spell casting by contrast is quick, and dirty where the lowest common denominator often can carry the day. The longer elaborate spells taught to duelers are quickly disregarded for short cast, rapid fire, low power spells that generate maximum damage for the effort.

A war mage doesn't learn silent casting because it's an impressive feat or an edge because your target doesn't know what you're casting. They learn it because saying some silly Latin takes too damn long. You'll likely never see a war mage waste his time with an "unforgivable". That is not a matter of morality; it's a matter of practicality.

Those three spells are not only rather power heavy for the effect, they are also individual focus. Casters effectively have to tunnel vision to ensure successful usage of those spells. In an open battlefield, individually targeting enemies and utilizing elaborate implementations of impero or the pain curse, or the heavy power draw of the killing curse is slow and time consuming.

The longer you take to kill your enemy, the more time for his allies to gang up and kill you instead. In that regard it's very similar to the difference between a martial arts trained master, and a solider taught hand to hand combat. Masters are trained to beat their opponents decisively, soliders are taught to kill and move on.

Further widening the gap between war mages and their professional cousin's, is the choice of focus. Crafted wands are an excellent tool for a magic user; they allow you to have a highly attuned tool, to channel your magic with. It also, leads to greater ease of highly delicate, manipulations' for complex spell work. These strengths allowed for the use of wands to become the dominate form of magic in the western world for centuries.

However, over last 15 years wizards and witches had become very proficient in fighting demonic creatures; many war mages like Harry had begun forgoing the use of wands in combat reverting to staffs. While not as versatile or precise as wands, battle staffs were able to generate much more power in a spell, with lesser draw on the casters.

With the resurgence in rune work, the staff has gained a further boost. With embedded copper, silver, and sometimes gold into the wooden length of the staff; crafters were able to apply an open form variation of Tesla's stamp.

This allowed for mages to tap into ambient "fel magic" without corrupting their own core, the only price was a need to channel their own magic into the staff to shape and control the fel energy to maintain control and spell focus. As a rule of thumb, this has turned into an almost one to one pairing with a slight favor to more Fel than magic.

It's important to note that use of Fel, "taints" the end result, generally meaning that one has to be careful what you try to do with it. Since war mages aren't in the habit of using a runic battlestaff to cast cheering charms on small children, it's a small matter.

Normally this Fel boost only means that a wizard in a battle will be able to fight for longer without exhausting themselves, however most wizards Harry Potter is not.

With a bit off curse Harry jammed his staff into the ground between his feet, putting both his hands in the center of the staff he quickly began to channel his magic into it being met by a similar pulse of electric heat, his senses tingle as the energies mix, giving him a waft of something that hints at sulfur.

Using his magic to focus and bend the matching Fel to his will, the runes along the length of the staff, flared an almost blinding bright white. Ignoring the incantations of the wizards behind him and the distinct dull thudding blasts of the boomsticks, he focuses the growing swell of energy into a directed conjuration.

Across the field a series of mounds of earth shoot into the air around the Pit Lord, tossing the smaller legion forces in to the air and causing the supporting charge to falter. In their place a solid wall of granite 20 feet high cut off the majority of the Legion forces from the retreating human forces. The few demonic agents still on this side of the construct were quickly cut down by spell fire from the entrenched Prowlers.

The Pit Lord looked at the earthen construct with what could be viewed as distain and quickly knocked down all it could reach with a dismissive sweep. Rearing up on his hind legs, he slams back down onto all four with a bellow, sending out a shockwave of fire and Fel energies knocking down demons and earthen barriers in all directions. The shockwave is sufficient to dismount several riders and knock anyone standing outside the shield dome down to their knees.

While at the same time generating a backlash through the channeling, barely recognizing it in time Harry broke the conjuration stream to avoid getting cooked by the backlash. The effect still had a stunning and mild disorienting effect, forcing him to take a knee, while the reminder of the external blast smashed into the shield wall with a loud metallic clang.

In the chaos that follows the demons regain the momentum of their charge, some heading headlong towards the tunnel as others run down the dismounted riders.

Having run to Harry as soon as he saw him kneel, the Senior Lt. is just in time to watch the French once again engage with the quicker demon denizens. Drawing his wand and quickly casting a _Sonorus_ on himself, he tries to salvage what he can of the situation. "Fall back to the tunnel! We'll cover you!"

Only taking long enough to see he was heard, he turns to his platoon, "Siege spell mages! Rain hell at will!" The somewhat steady and calm tenor of Lt. Creevey is a mild counter point to preced the justifiably feared flaming onslaught of the Avalon Isle's wizard artillery.

The trebuchet siege spell is actually nothing of the sort. It's what is known as an incantation chain, a series of phrases arranged in a chant that allows easy linking of several spells in a specific sequence, in an open manner for ease of pooling magical energies amongst several people. The specific chain is an old ritual channeling dating back to the 2nd crusade, using a team of wizards a series of boulders are premade and summoned from a fixed point usually near the caster, which are then encased in fire and hurled at a target within line of sight of the summoning team. It's a series of simple low level spells, used in sequence of the incantation to devastating effect.

Normally a single conjuration of a flaming boulder would exhaust an average wizard utilizing a wand focus. The advantage of using prepared material drastically cuts down on the draw on the caster by eliminating the rock conjuration. So this chain has the ability to use moderate amounts of power to achieve repeatable high levels of destruction. Furthermore, when it was created it was common practice to use groups of four to five wizards to channel this destructive rain for up to an hour, which was more than necessary to level most non-magically fortified structures.

However when created, war mages didn't have the ambient aura of the Burning legion to draw upon. Using the modern Avalon battlestaff a single moderately powerful wizard can utilized the channeling for several minutes without risk of more than a small amount of fatigue.

For the next 10 minutes, the combined individual incantations of the 50 members of the war mage support platoon, Company A, Griffin Guards regiment transform the former pastoral French countryside into the 7th level of hell.

Still recovering from the roughly broken channeling Harry quickly takes a few deep breaths to steady the queasy feeling in his stomach as the disorientation fades. Standing up as he shakes his head to try and clear it. Reeling from the wave of energy that washes over the shielding or the loud reverberating clang that made his ears ring does not help matters.

He feels a firm hand on his right shoulder; looking back he sees a look for no one but him, compassionate encouragement and sense of support in the deep blue eyes of Lavender Brown. With a slight nod she drops the hand back to her own staff and turns away from Harry as her eyes harden again.

Leveling it out at the field, dull lights flow up the runes of staff, a large _Reducto_ bolt the size of a cannon ball quickly flies out and blows up the earth at the feet of a grouping of fel hounds that somehow had been fortunate enough to avoid the bombardment, scattering them into various falling conflagrations.

With a minute or two to gather his focus again, Harry survey's the field. The company's bombardment through the use of the trebuchet spell, boosted in no small manner by liberal use of his "gift", has completely cratered and scorched the surround terrain, the sustained bombardment has managed to drive almost all of the Legion forces back to the Pit lords position, who seems to be swatting aside the car sized flaming rocks like they are annoying flies.

In fact only a handful of lesser demons have managed to weather the barrage and made it into shelter of the rock piles flanking the tunnel. Scattered bolts from the below Harry's feet indicate a few brave souls were at the edges firing out to try and suppress the advance of a pack of hounds and fel guards that had made it to the tracks.

Leveling his staff a powerful _Sectumsempra_ flew out as a wave cleaving down three of the taller demons with deep gouges into the rocks on either side. A following pair of _Reducto_ takes care of the remainder of the Fel guards. By this point fire from inside the entrance has put paid to the hounds.

Surveying the impromptu battlefield, the only remaining forces out on the field belong to the Legion, any of the picket screen forces that didn't make it to the tunnel were more than likely wiped out by the bombardment. The fire and stone weight had a cremating effect on the corpses afield, making it impossible to guess how many poor bastards were hit by friendly fire. It's doubtful more than a handful had managed to make it to the safety of the tunnel.

After the nearly 10 minute bombardment, the ready supply of boulders is exhausted, the mage forces cease channeling and work on trying to center and gather back their strength. While conditioned and experienced in combat, and also boosted by their battle staffs, continuous casting for 10 minutes is still draining. After all even a world class runner gets winded after running a full out sprint.

The Burning Legion forces immediately take advantage of the lull and storm back over the pockmarked field, trampling over the remains of their fellows whom they just watched crushed and burned moments before. The Pit Lord towering over the swarming mass begins weaving his long bladed staff in what is undoubted a spell incantation.

Swallowing the small wave of frustration at the waste and callousness of Legion tactics, Harry has to make a call. With an open handed wave to his throat; "_Sonorus_, Prowlers! We are leaving! Avalanche formation on my mark!" While the wizard platoon quickly quits casting to begin channeling power into their staffs, he cancels the charm with negligent gesture and turns to escorts.

"Hagrid, Lav...lay down cushioning charms there" they follow his gesturing to over the edge to the 40 foot drop down below. "Once you get them placed concentrate fire down that pass" his staff is pointed down between what still stands of the earth berms below, "between the rock piles, we have to keep it clear so we can get to the tunnel. Job's done, if we don't get out of here that Pit Lord is going crush us like an insect."

All along the parameter of the redoubt sounds of battle can be heard as the first ranks of the new offensive run into the pikes and shields of the infantry phalanx with abandon, completely disregarding the losses as they are cut down at the shield wall, and the holes torn in their ranks by the combined fire of over a hundred boomsticks. Suddenly the pit lord ceases his incanting and sharply jabs his massive staff at the company redoubt.

A continuous bolt of lightning like fire strikes down on the shield dome causing cracks to appear instantly in the field, while some of the rune shields begin to smoke. Cracking and some cases beginning to burn under the strain to the determent of the soldiers holding onto them. Several are outright shattered by the physical strikes of demons wounding or killing the bearers even as the attackers themselves are cooked by the now wildly pulsing shield. With a shout of inarticulate rage Harry swings his staff around with both hands and jabs up at the sky over the formation.

The runes are now blinding go anyone who try to look directly at them. Focusing his efforts at the dome, Harry lays his own shielding spell overtop of the rune based one. The staff in his hand begins to shake and smoke due to the energy flowing throw it, the smell of burning meat which was dully present from across the field, becomes much sharper in focus. He realizes belatedly that his staff has started burning into his hands.

The shield continues to crack as the attack is merely weakened by the additional shielding. Just as he reaches the point he can no longer push magic through his staff, the fire bolt ceases.

Trembling Harry collapses onto his hands and knees boarding on the edge of complete magical exhaustion. SSgt. Brown seeing out of the corner of her eye, his relative incapacitated state, doesn't hesitate for a moment.

She snarls out, her voice raspy almost like a growl, "Mages! Now!" He's vaugley aware of the shift in casting before dropping to his head in submission to his exhaustion.

Much like the Trebuchet, the Avalanche formation casting string, is a channeled incantation. This one is however in stark contrast to the fire based string and rather more complex in execution. The overall effect is creation, as the name implies, of a rapidly moving wall of ice and snow that acts like a very cold battering ram.

In northern France in late summer it is, as one might imagine, rather difficult to come across either frozen projectile. Fortunately Potter's Prowlers are well practiced in this technique; they should be since they invented it.

Fifteen mages beginning a rapid chant pooling their collective resources and creating truly massive amounts of ice. Another team of five begins chanting a modified spell originally created for icebreaking for sailing ships, this variation shatters the ice into razor sharp shards and banishes them in the general direction of the demon host, in this case basically everywhere but the tunnel entrance.

A third grouping of ten wizards in five pairs of two, with the focus on dual casting as opposed to chant incanting, dual casting is the use of two spells that complement each other simultaneously for a greatly increased effect. This specific application would be hitting the already rapidly moving sharp shards with a combined blasting and banishing curses; making them greater in number, jagged and moving with an even greater speed.

The final team of twenty wizards focus on the impacted fragments with a similar incantation to the first team, causing the shards that already impacted to begin to rapidly expand incasing the impacted areas in large deposits of ice.

Overall the effect is devastating, almost uncountable amounts of ice shards tear into the 2nd wave of demons like a hail of bullets, once impacting knocking them down and in many cases causing piercing trauma, the unlucky attackers quickly become buried and incased in ice. Within minutes the formerly cratered and burning plain is quickly covered in mounts and drifts of snow, entombing hundreds of demons and their lesser minions in blocks of ice.

A good thing it happens quickly, as takes less than three minutes for several of the war mages begin to collapse in exhaustion, the spell chain is extremely draining due to the need of conjuring such vast amounts of ice. Most of this devastation is lost on Harry, he too busy focusing on ignoring the pain in his hands and focusing on one final spell.

Hauling himself back up to his knees, he reaches out with his senses he feels for the edges of the literal pile of cushioning charms cast over the ground below, which form a sort of haphazard quilt that covers pretty much the entire area within about 30 feet of the entrance. Needing fine control for this working, he draws his wand from his wrist holster, ignoring the burning pain that shoots up his arm from his already stressed pathways. He carefully weaves the charms into a temporary warding, combining the spells into a momentum barrier, effectively a temporary version of the safety spell used in quidditch to keep players from killing themselves if they get knocked off their broom.

While it won't last long it should be enough to keep anyone from breaking a leg or back when they jump. The warding pulses a warm greenish gold letting him know that the spells took, he manages to return is wand to its holster before he finally loses his battle with gravity beginning to fall face first into the ground. Just as he's about to collapse, large pair of hands wraps almost around his waist and host him up over an even larger pair of shoulders in a fireman carry.

Looking down he can see the sweaty and tired form of Hagrid carrying both him and their staffs, having been casting for almost half an hour and not having near the reserves that Harry posses, he must be nearly as exhausted as Harry feels. Looking over to Lavender who was leaning against her staff while maintaining over watch, he's sure there all just about done in.

"Alright! You heard the Captain! We're done with the killing; let's move Prowlers before the legion decides to return the favor!" The bass tones of WO2 Widerberg resound over the company as they turn to see him, standing waving the company banner in one hand while wielding his revolver in the other, he heads to Harry's position.

The sight is enough to snap everyone out of there daze. Abandoning the immolated remains of the shields, the troopers pick up the wounded as well as lending a hand to the exhausted mages, and make for the berm edge. Adjusting Harry to a bridal style carry, and making sure to have a firm grip Hagrid jumps first followed quickly by Lavender, Widerberg, and then the remainder of the company.

Meanwhile, across the field….

The onslaught quickly begins to drive the lesser forces back behind the Pit Lord, who with an inarticulate shout of rage crushes several of the demons fleeing around him; he lifts its large bladed focus into the air. In challenge or threat it's unclear, but with a blast of fire strong enough to melt most of the ice flying at them instantly, he creates a line that remains unaffected by the wintery blast. His rage seems to have an effect of pushing the horde back into the fray.

As soon as they humans begin to withdrawal into the tunnel, the Pit Lord bellows a challenge and begins to charge toward the cave entrance. He's far too large to actually go in himself but the insult he's suffered from the failure of his horde to crush this insignificant human force has moved him beyond reason.

Throwing out blasting curses that gouge heavy clumps of earth, ripping boulders from the ground and hurling rubble; the minions get the message. With all the force they could muster, the Pit Lord lead demon horde begins to try and expand the tunnel entrance, while several smaller members begin to stream down the tunnel in pursuit of the fleeing humans.

**Channel Tunnel, Under the English Channel , September 4th, 2010, 13:45 GMT.**

Harry leaned heavily against his staff while he surveyed his troops. They had escaped from their holding action in rather good condition, the loss of about two dozen troopers from the shield detail is rough, but considering the odds they did far better than they had any expectation to. So with that kind of luck, it's not surprising the other shoe dropped for the company that has embraced what it is to be a Harry Potter.

The original plan was to completely collapse the channel tunnel as soon as Harry's company and all remaining troops had exited, however to avoid exactly what is happening right now there was a second series of charges in place to collapse the first 150ft of the tunnel to avoid pursuit. It's unknown if it was the Burning Legion or Harry's own counter attacks but someone had completely destroyed the runic array that controlled demolitions at the tunnel mouth on the French coast….Fantastic.

Electrical technology fell out of use when the national power grids and computer systems shorted out and failed. Luckily runes arrays were able to simulate many of effects taking up the technology slack, including acting as detonators.

However the arrangement for the tunnel wasn't actual explosives, frankly the state of affairs today, they'd be hard pressed to be able to come up with enough traditional explosives to collapse 30 miles of reinforced undersea tunnel, if it was possible at all.

Instead, the warding teams had come up with a runic application that was going to turn the supports into unstable transfigurations and then detonate them by overloading the stabilizing runes. The overall effect would just about guarantee they'd completely demolish every inch of the tunnel. While highly effective, such specific runic effects need a complex controller, one that is apparently easily damaged.

The good news is the other array should be fine and will finish the job except for that last 150 feet, and if the Legion really wants a short tunnel that runs to a water filled landslide, well they can have it. The bad news, it's also means that the dark, dank and danger free hike they were supposed to take under the wards and then portkey to the Isle has now been a two hour close quarters exercise.

For company A and the handful of scout troopers bolstered with the French fighters found just inside the tunnel, it was proving to be a costly trek. The sporadic chemical lights cast everything into a pale gloom, he'd snorted when a French Lt. Colonel named Delacour, thanked them all for "having the foresight to provide such appropriately themed lighting to match their situation."

So far the ragtag command had acquitted themselves well considering it's never a great idea to fight a demon in space with little maneuvering room. The tunnel ceiling, itself is over twenty feet high, with a similar width; packing them in tight enough that it encouraged Harry to order the pikes abandoned, for the sake of speed and what limited maneuver without tripping over "the damn toothpicks" as pointed out by the Sgt. Major.

It didn't however stop larger lesser demon classes in close to the retreating figures. Harry was considered a rising star by Avalon Central Command; a powerful wizard, a decent strategist, and popular with the troops all lead to his thus far highly successful military career.

That being said, no one is master of everything; in standard Potter style luck, he happened literally run into exactly what he needed for the situation; Lieutenant Colonel of the Légion étrangère Louis Delacour.

Colonel Delacour, had been an instructor in hand to hand and Legion's premiere field officer in close quarters combat. Not be confused with Urban warfare, small unit close quarter tactics is a generally highly specific skill set, one that Harry lacked.

Commonly referred to as close quarters combat, or CQB, it was a major up and coming strategy in for field officers to learn in post cold war Europe. Given the mass infantry attacks, and relative back step in fighting technology over the course of the "Demon War" tied with the sheer loss of life, including experienced military officers; it was readily becoming a lost art.

While all fighting forces these days carried some sort of iron based melee weapon, most troopers were far from what could be called "proficient". With their generally superior strength and size, training focused on fending off Legion Forces to gain room to maneuver and attack at range.

Even with plenty of experience over the last three years and many situations that demons where fought at close range. Pike and Shield fighting in open plain was a far cry from the cramped conditions of the tunnel. The Colonel and his men had the chance to return the favor of a crash course battle field instruction.

Near the last two hours of "learning experience" they've lost nearly 80 company soldiers, half the French and several of the surviving scout riders, also the majority of the war mages have exhausted themselves to the point they are now being carried, leaving a Harry, Delacour, Colin, Lavender, Hagrid, Widerberg and twenty or so of his own command's assorted troopers to hold the rear with the French.

Peering back down the tunnel to France, it appears the recently cast four ways combined blasting curses that collapsed a stretch of tunnel without amazingly bringing the ocean down on them, had slowed the buggers down.

That is until he heard the guttural bellows, followed short dissent tones, almost like someone was trying for a melodic note but just missed it. Harry paused as his thoughts came to a screeching halt and closed his eyes. He didn't actually understand 'Demonspeak', but knew of only one creature in the Legion that sounded like that….A Dread Lord.

To his best knowledge Harry didn't know nor know anyone who might know who's actually in charge of the Burning Legion but for those that spent any significant amount of time in battle with them knew that the effective leadership at least locally fell to the de facto generals the Dread Lords.

Clearly the Legion was far too large for them to be calling all the shots, demons by nature stab each other in the back whenever they get the chance. The only way to keep them as ordered as they are, would be to have someone even bigger and meaner keeping them in line. That being said Dread Lords are tough enough in most people's books. Not only are they physically imposing at almost 15-20 feet tall, they are decent magic users, on a class just above Harry in terms in sheer magical power, which would be bad enough. But on top off all that, they were clever.

Unlike the brutish standard demons that would charge into a situation in a bellowing rage at the drop of a hat, or the poor twisted creatures that were enthralled and used as simple cannon fodder, Dread lords actually exercised caution. Generally speaking if you came in direct contact with one; you've already killed your way through a massive amount of demons. Harry opened his eyes at that thought, there was a worrying fact, Dread Lords never travel alone.

Taking stock of the situation: stuck in a manmade cave, traveling with heavily injured companions that make fleeing impossible, facing a monster of nightmares and his entourage that you generally want at least a dozen good war mages and a platoon of troops to take down alone.

They have four exhausted magi barely able to summon a light spell between us, with twenty equally battered and tired troopers. No heavy weapons, no maneuver room, and almost no hope of reinforcement.

Looking over to his companions he can see they've reached the same conclusion he has. Hagrid has unslung his halberd and put his staff up a somber look on his face. Lavender has done the same except extracting a pair of Kris blades to attach to her wrists, her face blank in concentration peering into the gloom down the tube. Colin has pulled his short sword and a long dagger, with a determined look on his face. Widerberg had slung his double bearded axe back over his shoulder, pulled both his short sword and revolver. Behind them are a dozen company men, and pair from the scout company. The remander of the French contingent are simply standing there improvised weapons held ready, awaiting orders.

Catching Harry's the company 1st Sgt, voices his thoughts, "I sent two lads as runners up to the port point, the rest of the lads are lending a hand to hustle the rest up the tunnel, while you spell throwers take your coffee break. Figured a few extra bodies wouldn't make much of a difference."

"These lads", he gestured to the grim looking figures behind him, "well they were worried you'd trip wandering down alone here in the dark, figured they might as well use 'em to keep us company." He finished the last with a grin that was positively feral. "Fellow could get hurt down here if they weren't careful afterall."

A glance to the man standing next to him yielded knowledge that Delacour had found humor in WO2 Widerberg's antics, if the quirked lips were any indication.

Looking back to Harry, he gibly threw out in accented english, "I take were in serious life threatening danger?" Harry flexed his damaged hands, two hours in the tunnels showed him they weren't as bad as they appeared, hefting his staff into his left hand, he reached over his shoulder and drew Godric's sword.

It seemed to sing as it left the scabbard the rubies still glittering with what seemed like fire even in the dank darkness that surrounded them. It was probably just his imagination, but the gloom seemed less oppressive now. With a nod he replied as he turned to face the way they had come. "Yea, you could say that."

"Wonderful, it is lovely to have change of pace since our morning workout." Another thing learned after two hours, was the Colonel seemed unable to speak in anything other than scathing sarcasm. He and Widerberg had been getting on famously.

Coming to stand next to Harry he checked the ammo in his sidearm. Apparently also like his Sgt, he was loath to part from it. "We fight in two sections, give the other half a chance to rest, let's make these bastards bleed."

**Channel Tunnel, Under the English Channel , September 4th, 2010, 14:25 GMT.**

Harry slumped against the tunnel wall, his armor was splattered in gore, but other than being utterly exhausted he was mostly unharmed. The others weren't so fortunate, Colin had his arm in a make shift sling, his collar bone broken when he was knocked aside against the tunnel wall by a fel guard. Hagrad had a torn strip of cloth covering his left eye, a lucky tail whip from a Succubus managed to open up a wound, and bloody his vision. Which allowed a Shivarra to get a soild sword blow in across his ribs, the armor and his natural resilience took the brunt of it, but the way he's wheezing its broken ribs and maybe something with his lung is a safe bet.

One of the scouts, Harry hadn't caught his name but that hadn't help avoid getting his throat ripped out by a fel hound. Of the members of Harry's company volunteers', one was bleeding out after being run through, he was still alive having been placed behind the impromptu battle line, but passed out from blood loss so it wouldn't be long now.

Of the others all but three had fallen to the enthralled and lesser demons that seemed to come in waves. The French being more practiced had faired better, but were down to somewhere around twenty. Skilled in this style they might be, but the lack of armor was showing on them.

Lavender slumped over on Harry now completely unconscious; he gently nudged her back up. She had been knocked back by Colin's fel guard powered flight, and then trampled over when the group charge towards the rest of the companions. Her innate abilities will likely take care of any of the injuries, all her open wounds had already closed over, but that level of healing on top of being already magically exhausted, well she was likely done in for now.

Harry hauled himself to his feet as the guttural shouts increased down the tunnel, seems the boss is done with waiting and ready to be done with this. He joined Hagrid who was leaning on his halberd for support, next to his company sergeant. While he checked the ammunition in his revolver, Hagrid winced as he tried to stand up straight, with a jerk of his head Harry set Colin to stand over Lavender's prone form. They were set short line just down the tunnel from the French, who had formed up into a firing line, pooling what functional boomsticks they still had.

With their greatly reduced numbers Delacour had suggested they try to put fire support to use plugging the gaps in the passage they were now incapable of covering. The others checked their remaining weapons or flexed their wrists waiting as the shouts and growls grew steadily louder.

Suddenly a large horned man with purple skin and dark purple wings man appeared from the gloom illuminated in profile from the glow cast by a flaming sword of all things. With a thudding step, he came to a halt.

After a quick survey and a gesture of the fiery sword, a bellowing roar of "Die!", sent another wave charging down the tunnel. This particular Lord, seemed to favor use red skinned fellows with tusks as his choice of cannon fodder they had to have killed several hundred by now. With that in mind Harry wasn't actually sure who he was ordering to die.

"Don't these fuckers ever try something new?" Widerberg ground out as he began unloading carefully placed shots, combined by potshots from the French, caused the outright charge to become a stuttered advance, keeping the small group from being overrun outright.

Bracing for the assault, they readied weapons and assumed a balanced stance. While the Griffin guards were all skilled and experienced soldiers, any other kind didn't last long these days. They'd been fighting for hours, and with the latest group outnumbered easily three to one. This was going to get messy.

….one of the griffin troopers when down to an axe blow to the shoulder, a second one finished the job…. A distinct click indicated Widerberg was out of ammo…

Harry took a glancing blow of an axe off his shoulder, and took that as a sign, the collective group pulled back to reposition, leaving another five of their number behind.

When Colin appeared at his side, Harry knew they were done falling back. He'd die before he abandoned Lavender to these things. The red skinned creatures also took a moment to arrange them for another charge. The continuous onslaught from the second rank hand widdled down there numbers to an even score.

Breath's caught and tensed for the next charge, the Prowler's were caught witness to the sudden breaking of the Legion's ranks.

While, several of the red thralls fell, dropped to boomstick fire, swarming around the hand full of battered fighters, a group screaming obscenities in French charged past their holding position. The unexpected second wind took the lesser demons and minions by surprise knocking them off balance and allowing complete lull at their end of the tunnel.

The Lt Colonel holding the distinctive hat of the French Foreign legion under his arm, orderly walked up to the company's line. Walking to stand right in front Harry, he calmingly handed Harry a letter. "If you'd be so kind, I have family that's made it to your fine Island home," he looked toward the battered remnants of his command.

His accented English was heard easily over the din down the tunnel. "Well gentleman, I thank you for hosting this wonderful party, but I'm afraid you're going to have to show yourselves out while we deal with our uninvited guests!"

Harry began to protest until the Colonel grabbed him by his combat harness and looked him in the eye, "If France is to end today! Then the Legion will guard it in its last moments!"

He quickly thrust harry back into his hands of his company sergeant. "Take them home," Delacour said with a nod over Harry's shoulder, as he replaced his cap.

He looked back to see the rest of his men being helped up by soldiers with the gold and crimson on their shoulders. 'must be closer to the portkey point than I thought,' turning back to the French officer just in time to see two legionaries cleaved in half by the Dread Lord who stood alone now.

The dozen or so remaining closed ranks over the fallen French pressed the attack. Now wounded the creature let out a feral bellow, as purple blood was flowed freely from its left wing, right side and down both legs. With a tap on his shoulder he knew his men were already on the move out.

The Colonel after making sure the rest of Griffin's were moving off, shot him a stern look, "consider this a down payment on the debt we owe for saving what you could of our people," turned back to return to his men who were faltering under the Demon's rage were beginning to fall at an alarming rate.

Drawing his saber from his hip he fired one last comment without taking his eyes off the fight, Harry could barely hear a softly spoken, "Go on Captain….It'll be your turn soon enough." Then with a cry of "Vive la France!" he charged in to join his men.

Fifteen minutes later Harry was portkeyed to the base at the Avalon side of the tunnel. A pepper up potion, a burn salve on his hands, a promise to not use magic for at least two days, and ten minutes later Harry was sitting, watching the portkey arrival point. A short five minutes later a handful of bloodied legionaries ported in, the man in the middle a corporal according to his shoulder stripes was holding what Harry recognized as the Colonel's saber.

Stumbling over to stand in front of Harry, he offered a salute and a clearly American accented "Victory."; before allowing himself to be dragged off to the med tent with his fellows.

Five minutes later Harry was still looking at the slightly blood stained letter in his hands as a dull series of thuds were followed by a thunderous crash that shook the ground all around him.

**Channel Observation station #4 (Cliffs of Dover, near former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 4th, 2010, 20:00 GMT.**

The letter crinkled as he brushed his hand across the hip pocket where he still had stowed, according to the base doctor, all surviving Legion Troops would be back up and about in a day or two.

Reassignment in their future, their command effectively destroyed, France lost to the horde. Harry was told that as of this morning the Légion étrangère was officially disbanded and all former French fighters were to be broken apart and folded into different commands.

He made a mental note to see if he could work around the rule of spreading them out over different units, and snag as many as he could for replacements. Men that brave deserved to be able to stand by their friends, the fact they'd improve his units combat proficiency was just gravy.

Having completed his cursory inspection and introspection, tomorrow he'd have to deal with the aftermath, get a final account of his company's status. Check on Lavender, Hagrid, and Colin after he could chase off the hovering healer staff.

'Another rough day at the office' he mused as he glanced back across the channel, "I'm sure, not that we needed anymore posthumous heroes. Damn shame we couldn't get them out with us sergeant major." The elder man grunted in response, he chaffed a bit at form of address, the American remnants had infected most of the younger soldiers with their vernacular, so it was an old argument he mostly gave up on years ago.

"Well Sir, I doubt were going to see anything more in this shit, don't know 'bout you, but I've seen enough smoke and fire today. Might as well go sack out before we see what the higher ups have in mind try and kill us, since that didn't get it done." He said with a gesture to the conflagration across the water.

Harry didn't even bother to try and hide his smirk, his company 1st sergeant, was an excellent solider and leader, but his borderline contempt for officers had caused him to ruin his prospects. Both he and Harry knew, the only reason he was even afforded a warrant officer post was due to Harry refusing to have someone else do the job. The cutting sarcasm, did draw his thoughts back to Delacour though, which was enough to keep it from going to a grin.

Picking up the gear at his feet his previous thought put aside for the moment, while Rothgar did the same Harry couldn't resist shooting him a dig in the vein of his brooding, "what you don't like being a big damn hero?"

With a pause in his preparations, Rothgar gave unimpressed look to his commanding officer, "you don't honestly think I'm dumb enough to believe that bullshit?"

"Well you do follow me around." With a snort, he started walking away from the cliff "Yeah alright we're both dumbasses. Let's go enjoy the fruits of our lack of common sense."

Much like ammunition, fuel in the British Isles was almost nonexistent these days, so what would have been short Landrover ride from the cliffs to the operations base was now a 20 minute hike. It was quiet allowing plenty of time for Harry to finish gathering his thoughts, simply following his lead company man on autopilot his mind drifted to his earlier thoughts. He'd have to make inquiries to see if he could locate Delacour's family.

If a dying man wished for Harry to convey his last thoughts to his family. Harry would see it done, it was the least he could do, he did owe him after all.

AN: Expect a retuned chapter two coming down the pike soon as well.


	2. and it had been going so well too, redux

**Disclamer:**If I actually owned the rights, you'd know my name not Chris Metzen and JK Rowling….oh well at least they let me toy with their IP.

**Captain Potters Tent, Outskirts of Channel Operations Command (former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 6th, 2010, 4:30 GMT.**

Harry awoke to comforting warmth pushed against his front, opening his eyes all he could see was a mass of golden blonde hair. The soft sigh has a slight rough edge to the otherwise melodious timbre, a clear indication that the scaring at her throat is more than skin deep.

Taking a moment to ignore the world at large, he simply pulled her closer, buried his face into the golden mane, and breathed in the rich scent afforded from his tightened hold of the form of SSgt Lavender Brown who wasn't complaining in the slightest….

After the tunnel fiasco, the company injuried had been hauled off the base medical center. Once triaged with light bruising and a rather severe case of magical exhaustion she was dumped on a cot at the end of the bay to allow the Healers, Doctors and assorted staff to focus on the more seriously injured.

They let her sleep sixteen hours before making her get up to eat and take in fluids. Letting her go back to her cot, no one noticed when she slipped out four hours later. Usually Lavender was far more circumspect in there rendezvous, not wanting to flaunt their relationship, it was after all completely against regulations. Not that they were trying all that hard to hide it, the reality of being in an operation field unit meant secrets like that were few and far between.

The company as a whole was generally underwhelmed by the whole thing; pretty much everyone knew about it, it didn't suddenly start one day, they didn't shag on the table at mess formation; mostly it was simply chalked up as a quirk and left at that.

If General George Patton could go around believing he was the reincarnation of a Roman General and people still followed him into battle. It's probably no surprise that they didn't so much as bat an eyelash when they found out Captain Potter sometimes got cozy, with the scariest woman this side of the channel.

Company scuttlebutt back before Lavender physically adjusted its perception, held that Brown had received her NCO posting due to her effectiveness as Harry's lover and regular bed warmer. Well as usual, rumor was somewhat correct while at the same time being completely wrong.

She was intelligent, cool headed under fire, a good war mage, and excellent staff adjutant to help Harry with his administration. The fact she has a body that haunted his dreams was just a plus.

Though never really spoken of other than in whispers over drinks amongst darkened corners, it's understood that Harry Potter was not the product of a good childhood. While fostering a self reliance, strengthen his will to survive adversity, and other character traits that made him a success in the demon war. It didn't negate the fact since it was developed as a matter of survival, it didn't come without its own price.

Outwardly to the untrained eye it seemed he was able to shrug off the horrors visited on this world by the Legion and other evils, no small feat these days. Those that could claim to know the real Harry knew better, he was a twisted broken thing.

That's not to say he's a monster, to his friends he is loyal, selfless, and brave. It's just the flipside includes a mild sociopathic nature, easily seen in his easy rise to anger with regards to certain hot button topics. Normally, this sort of thing could be worked on and dealt with, allowing for growth into a fully whole and rounded person even without a solid base of a good childhood. That being said, post invasion Europe is a bit sparse on qualified physiotherapy, coupled with years of strife against the evil of the Legion, and has left Harry a tortured soul prone to bouts of brooding.

Lavender Brown suffered no such issues from her early child hood experiences. She grew up in a moderately affluent family with both parents and several siblings. While not spoiled she certainly never wanted for anything, in fact when Harry had first met her in school she was a vibrant, happy and outgoing child with an ignorance of the evils in the world.

In reflection, Harry had envied that outlook on more than one occasion. Without that solid upbringing as a foundation, it's doubtful she would have ever bounced back from her ordeal.

Werewolves in 1990's England were treated like lepers, their very existence was cursed and the average magical citizen wouldn't even waste the water to spit on them. So the werewolf that had taken her looks and almost her life put her through an experience that shattered her in more ways than physical, he injured her perception of how the world works. It was more shattering than the physical damage and changes to her body, though the increased aggression and distinct scarring did come with their own issues.

While never actually gaining the full effect of being a werewolf, which would include the transformations, the stigma of being "tainted" was enough.

A 17 year old Lavender Brown had found out quickly how cruel the world could really be. For a friendly classic blonde beauty like Lavender it was a harsh contrast, boys and supposed friends that would spend their day's vying for a bit of her time, now would shift to the other side of a room if they saw her. While her family did their best to be supportive, it was always strained effort. They loved their daughter/sister, but social taboos are hard to ignore. The years immediately after her attack, were easily the loneliest of Lavender's life.

The fact of the matter was many victims of "were' attacks" eventually ended up given into despair, disappearing completely, back then it was assumed they end up taking their own lives. Lavender would be likely another of those statics, had it not been for Parvati Patil and Harry Potter.

Parvati had been her's best friend for as long as she could remember, a testament to this fact was that Lavender may have actually known her better than even her own twin sister Padma. Any doubts she had about Parvati not being supportive for her, disappeared mere days after the attack.

Pravati had been dating a fellow student of theirs for the better part of three years, with it looking to likely lead to the all too common post graduate Hogwarts wedding dash. That all changed with the attack, the gentleman in question starting making subtle hints about distancing themselves from Lavender for the sake of "their" future. That particular exchange lead to showing why Pravati was a member of the house of the brave, the rumors from the dissolution of the long standing relationship were only answered by her standing near her friend with her head held high.

The pall cast on her from associating with a "known werewolf" certainly didn't make life any easier for her, especially with Pravati's outlook that anyone who couldn't be friends with Lavender wasn't good enough for her to waste time on. Any time Lavender tried to bring it up perhaps toning down their association to make her life easier, she simply received a stern look and a firmly squeezed hand.

For the longest time Lavender had trouble wrapping her head around the position her friend had taken. Worse were the nights she spend lying awake wondering if she would have had that kind of resolve and courage had she been in Pravati's place; though if she was mystified by her friends actions, then she was completely lost when it came to Potter's.

Brutal personal traumatic events have a shock inducing quality on the human body, commonly causing the victims of such events to suffer completely memory loss of said event. The repression of the fear and panic is said by some to be a defense mechanism of sorts that protects the person and allows them to move on.

In a similar style, Lavender never knew why she was attacked; actually the extent of trauma was to the point, that she couldn't even remember why she was in the area that it happened.

What she does remember was the feeling of panic as she was choking on blood, squinting through watery eyes trying to clear them and make sense of what was happening. The panic only intensified by not being able to feel or move her body, and seeing the desperate visage of…Harry Potter?

Despite coming to Hogwarts at the same time, going to classes, and living in the same tower dorm. She couldn't have spoken to him more than a handful of times over the years. His presence only added to her confusion.

His lips were moving but she was unable to hear it, her head was spinning from what she found later to be the concussion. She could feel a burning pain on her face and an almost indescribable pain from her throat. But behind that she could feel a soothing warmth that seemed to arc across her skin, it's a bit jumbled in recall but forced to recall, it almost seem like she could sense it with her soul.

It was a rich smell of damp earth and ozone like after a rain storm, she now knows it isn't a real smell, after having been told about how Harry had knocked the werewolf off her and immolated it. As well as the horrid smell that filled the area for days afterward that she had no memory of, she knew it wasn't a physical sense.

At the same time she also knew that "smell" was distinctly Harry. Primal, elemental, soothing and natural it was the essence of Harry's magic.

…..Taking in a deep breath of that same "scent", she slowly began to shift her hips in gyration against Harry's front earning a soft groan for the effort, which he started to reciprocate…..

Lavender was moderately powerful witch, probably ranked somewhere comfortably in just below half of users in the world. At least that's how she was born.

No one knows exactly what Harry did; according to the med wizard's scans, she should have been dead. The werewolf was very complete in mauling Lavender, her throat completely torn out, along with both arteries in her neck, and crushing damage to at least three broken vertebrae indicating at least partial damage to her spinal cord.

Death in more than 5 minutes was the accepted outlook for such an injury, except when the rapid response from St. Mugo's trauma center arrived 12 minutes later. She was disoriented and panicked but still very much alive.

Aside from the scars, it appeared that Lavender had simply fell down and those injuries were months old. A glance to Harry who was staring down at what was apparently her blood covering his arms and his lap in a mild state of shock. Inquires to what happened or if he was hurt only yielded a distracted mumble of "I couldn't let her die".

From that day forward three things were forever changed about Lavender, beyond the obvious. While not becoming a werewolf she had managed to gain improved muscle tone and stamina, along with a rather boosted natural healing factor. While never happy about having gained her notoriety, she certainly couldn't complain about the perks, especially at what they did for her figure.

Secondly, while she had been a decent student, combined with moderate magical strength easily making her a proficient wielder of magic, whatever Harry had done to her had amped up her magical potential. While she wasn't in Harry's league in terms of power, few if any were, she was now easily in the top 20%.

Combined with her improved stamina, agility and increased aggression, she moved from "able to look after self" to "don't mess with unless you want to die screaming".

The third "gift" is probably the one that took the longest to sort out the confusion from and come to terms with, her much closer relationship with Harry Potter. For starters, since the moment she regained consciousness she's been able to "smell" Harry.

Generally speaking, the ability to sense magic is not an overly noteworthy ability, most mages of reasonable strength can. Even weaker practitioners can with spells to boost senses and practice. For most, it's generally described as a unique sound, visual glow or tingling feel.

Lavender's ability was more akin the ability of a wolf to scent out a trail, aside from the feeling she just experienced a recent thunderstorm when she crossed paths with him, she wasn't able to classify. It was more that she just had a nearly constant sense of Harry or his magic if it was nearby.

These three major factors were the internal factors that began to warp her from the broken husk of a mauling victim into the tough as nails ground pounding demon killer that has scared the pants off half the company, she is today.

They in turn lead to, the fourth and final major factor of that forever changed the life of Lavender Brown; her truly formal introduction to Harry Potter.

…..Lavender let out a breathy sigh as his lips began to explore and worship the back of her neck, and his arms released their grip on her waist and beginning to trail his hands up and down her sides and hips over the tee shirt and panties she wore to bed last night….

It has been said that traumatic events have a way of linking people in bonds that the rest of us cannot possibly understand without having been through similar events. A common example of this is the reasonably well known "soldiers bond". However having your life nearly ripped out by your neck, and someone using their bare hands to stem the blood and save you also qualifies.

In times past, someone in Lavender's "condition" wouldn't be allowed to stay at Hogwarts, not after she had been turned into one of "them." It used to, in fact be illegal, for her to have been in the same living structure with children. While harsh, it's not completely unjustified position to have.

Some people say it's an irrational fear of something they don't understand, or is different that has pushed such hatred onto these poor people. To an extent that is correct, but not completely, some people fear them because they actually do understand them.

Lycanthropes can be extremely dangerous, not only do they carry a potentially contagious disease; they generally are stronger and faster than uninfected individuals. The hyper aggression is a near constant part of their lives, it does spike during the full moon phase, but much like the moon it simply abates, it never really leaves. Newly turned "Lycans" often have trouble reigning in their new instincts and commonly lash out at those around them.

Of course the fact the government simply threw them out on the streets was probably not the way to handle it, especially if the fear was spreading the disease. The fact that she wasn't contagious didn't matter, they would have been worried about her increasing the werewolf population.

Ironically a study by the Department of Health and Safety after integration in 1999, actually concluded that this policy probably had the opposite effect. The study concluded that there was likely already a significant number in hiding, based on anecdotal evidence and incomplete hospital records.

According to the findings of Doctor Michael Hurst, he predicted that there were probably already some nearly one half to one million afflicted people in the Isles today. Many scoffed at that, or did until in 2001 when doing survey's for the warding Islands a land mass the size of the state of Delaware was found hidden off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea.

While not the "million Lycan army" that Hurst predicted, the nearly three hundred thousand residents of Lunar Island, were very interested in seeing how he discovered his findings. Of course this is all a moot point, there was very little chance Lavender would have been removed from Hogwarts, in 1997.

Throughout 1995 and 1996, the ministry of magic started receiving various alarming and disturbing reports from various counter parts all over Eastern and Southern Europe. At first they scoffed at this, but then death notifications of extended family starting reaching members of the Wizarding legislature.

In a fit of poor judgment, several of these members elected to travel to visit their relations to, in the words of Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge "get to the bottom of all this rubbish". As a side note, no one has seen Fudge since he porkeyed to Polish Ministry in February of 1995.

By December 1996, nearly third of the magical government had disappeared. Unable to function in such a climate Albus Dumbledore, as Chief Warlock became the acting head of Wizarding Britain.

….Lavender gasped, nibbling on her earlobe, Harry's hands had worked their way up her shirt beginning to grope, sending a jolt up her spine…...

While paying more credence to the reports of "dark creatures" at work, in many lands, Albus was also taking an advantage of a golden opportunity; he pushed through several sweeping reforms for creature rights to improve relations to muggles.

In hindsight that was an excellent decision, in April of 1997 the Statue of Secrecy effectively ended. In an planned panicked attempt to stave off collapse the Austrian government in partnership with its magical equivalent, tried to establish working alliance to counter, what is now known to have been the Legion's advance.

This lead to full disclosure to all NATO nations, while it let the cat out of the bag, it didn't have the desired effect, Austria effectively folded by mid May of that year when the remainder of their governments fled to Germany.

The event did lead to the wizards taking action, in their usual fashion at least. The International Confederation of Wizard formally censured the Austrians in absentia, and convened full session in June to address the "muggle incident".

Albus Dumbledore acting as head of the government, and the appointed representative for Britain, was present at that meeting along with leaders and staff every magical government in the world. He was a firsthand witness of the loss of the ICW stronghold in Geneva.

Attracted the by large gathering of magic in one central location the Demon's effectively beheaded leadership of the world Magical community in the less than two hours it took them to swarm the entire compound.

Feeling from that nightmare wounded, Dumbledore returned to England a changed man. Apparently the loss of his left leg and three fingers, while watching the slaughter the wizarding world's best fighters, convinced him that compromise, understanding, and forgiveness weren't going to sway the Demon horde.

This was never better shown than when in July of 1997, forces acting under his direct orders broke Gellert Grindelwald out of Nurmengard.

…Harry turned her head to lay a deep kiss on her lips as he then trailed down to suckle on the her neck paying no regard to the scars at all, breaking her train of thought. She flipped over to face him to continue the kiss, as his right hand reached down to group her rear while his left continues its earlier work….

Everything changed after that, by September 1997,"Mages", as magical folk were generally labeled was declared a national strategic resource. Mandatory military training of any and all magically gifted individuals was considered vital national security.

Students no longer left Hogwarts after seven years of education, they continued on in courses in Warding, Dueling, and Healing, in addition being brought up to speed to Army basic training.

The new accelerated program kept them everyone busy, and kept the sneers towards Lavender to a minniumum. Still even with Pravati by her side, she was still extremely lonely, that's when she started noticing Harry.

In hind sight, that should have been obvious, at a time when everyone was going out of the way to avoid her, what were the odds that she'd keep running into someone who actually kept spending more and more time with her. This in itself was not unusual, normally, this sort of thing is how causal friendships are struck up. However disregarding the traumatic event that now linked them, Lavender's new "harry sense" keyed her into what was really happening, their meetings was deliberate. When she had figured this out, her new sense of rage took hold, figuring he spent months pitying her and trying to spend time with her because he felt bad for her only fueled the anger.

The day she had finally confronted him about discovery, was one that is she both regrets and holds in fondest recall. It was just before lunch she was just leaving her assigned room west side of the 7th floor, when she saw him. She quickly grabbed his arm and dragged him back to her and Parvati's shared room. Sitting him down on her bed and having managed to run into Harry alone, she tore into him for what she perceived as pitying.

For more than an hour she raged and ranted, pacing back and forth in front of him in the space between the beds, devolving from an attack on him into a confession and bearing of her own pain. From, how it hurt to have former friends shun her, to how she felt in turn she was letting Pravati hurt herself by associating with her. To this day she doesn't know what was about Harry at that moment, but she simply opened up to him.

When the relived pain became sufficient that she was rendered to inaudible crying, Harry simply stood up took her in his arms, and sat them both down on the ground with her in his lap, his back against the side of her bed. While rubbing small soothing circles in her back, he let her cry. Then after her breathing started to settle, he started to talk. He explained to her about his childhood, how instilled a general lack of self worth, while building his resolve. He explained his first couple of years at Hogwarts: the truth of how he killed their first Defense Professor, the battle with the giant Basilisk under the school, how he still felt alone and ashamed of whom he was.

After things started to change in their third year with the Demon war he still felt like an outsider. While people worried about their families and what this would mean for them as the reports grew grim each week, he had no one to worry about. How he was glad he had no one to lose as they heard about number of dead kept climbing, and how ashamed it made him.

He continued on in a similar manner laying him open for just under an hour, Lavender had stopped crying long before and simply just listened in stunned attention. His soliloquy ended her only real response was to comment on how calm he was about all of that. Rubbing his scar in a thoughtless tick, he abashedly mentioned that Hermonine and later after he reconnected with his Godfather had helped him talk and work through a lot of this.

She couldn't help but laugh, "And here I thought I'd found the single most emotionally deep man on the planet!"

The look he gave her as he looked her deep in the eye quickly silenced her laughter, "I may not know exactly what you're going through, but hopefully you can believe me when I say. That I understand." He hugged her again after that as she started to break down in tears again.

After that confession session, Harry started to slowly spend more time with both Pravati and Lavender.

…..Lavender, rolled atop Harry digging her hands into his hair and giving him a soul searing kiss, she almost lost Harry yesterday, so she tries pouring as much feeling as she can into it, he ran his hands up and down her spine, her shirt long since discarded…..

To classify them as "lovers" was generally a gross understatement of what is a much more complicated relationship. That isn't to say they aren't intimate from time to time, one only has to look at their current position, or the 10 year old twin blonde girls who are currently living with Mrs. Pravati Potter and their three half siblings, in Wales.

...'complicated that's a good word for it'. A thrill shoots through her when she realizes, they'll be seeing Pravati tomorrow. 'It's complicated' she thought as Harry rolled her onto her back, and begin kissing his way down her neck, taking some time to pay special attention to her chest, before continuing on…..eliciting a small purr from her….

While she knows that Harry undoubtedly loves Pravati deeply, and its best to try and not to think too hard about her own feelings for her sister in all but blood, she also knows that he _needs_ her. Pravati is a wonderful caring woman, who has many talents. Some Lavender is biblically aware of, remember….complicated.

At the same time Lavender and Harry have a deep connection, that Pravati has no hope of understanding. Harry has anger issues and a deep rooted fear that he really is worthless and nobody wants him. He knows that that while Pravati loves him, Lavender couldn't live without him, and he's her rock.

Conversely Lavender feels shunned by the world, that they only play lip service to her, and always focus on her "condition". She knows Harry sees her for her, doesn't care what she does because he has to have her in his life, she's his anchor.

They are both essentially broken, as such they each as a balance for the other. Allowing them to ignore the stress of the world, and be secure in knowing that no matter what they have each other. It's very likely that without that bond they both would have fallen apart years ago.

It's also one of the many reasons that when one of them had to be mustered out of service for, family reasons Pravati was a better choice for the children. While she is their spouse, they are each other's companion.

…Lavender's morning side evaluation of their relationships' completely functional dysfunction is broken off completely, as Harry has arrived at the destination of his southward journey. As he peels her last shred of clothing off, and then kisses his way back up her legs her mind goes completely blank.

Several minutes later heaving for breath and face flushed, she comes back into focus. With a primal growl of possessiveness resonating from deep in her well developed chest, she rolls over and on top of Harry. With trapping his hips between her thighs and fisting his hair in both hands she kisses him deeply.

…..She's usually far more circumspect, not wanting to flaunt the relationship…

…..But she almost lost Harry yesterday, so she tries pouring as much feeling as she can into it….

….they'll be seeing Pravati tomorrow, it's complicated….

…suddenly she no longer cares, having found something much more important for her mind to focus on…several times…

**Base Mess Hall, Channel Operations Command (former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 6th, 2010, 7:30 GMT.**

The mess is sparsely populated at this hour; most of the 1st Avalon Division marched out yesterday during the day to meet up with the 2nd and 3rd Division's already on route to staging areas near the Norwegian tunnel entrance in Scotland.

Most of the civilian refugees were being processed through centers set up in the heart of Folkestone, early reports say in processing and relocation is moving swiftly and should be completely within the next week few weeks.

The remaining temporary structures, erected to house the various commands, are slated to be taken down over the next two weeks as the various European Command force remnants are reassigned. They'll be marched out to various bases on the main Isle for retraining and rearming, in preparation for incorporation in to the soon to be established 6th through 11th Avalon Divisions.

The exception to this organized chaos is Company A, Griffin's Guards Regiment, 1st Avalon Division; who are soon to begin a 96 hour furlough, for in the words of command; "the purpose of recuperating from unexpected and especially hazardous combat operations".

Translated rather accurately in the company commander's opinion by WO2 Rothgar Widerberg for the enlisted as, "Sorry we left your asses hanging in the wind! Please! Don't leave us to fight the abominable bastards on our own!"

The final withdrawal through the tunnel was costly, when wounded were triaged and counted up, nearly 70% of 1st division's scout company was killed or wounded. Thanks to the small miracles of hybrid magic/muggle medicine, must should be up and about in two weeks.

General Steele wisely decided to give all members of that company a two week time frame to link up with the Division in at its new digs near Wick, Scotland. He didn't mention that the replacements were already on route and it would give him time to "bring them up to snuff" as he had droned on to the officers yesterday.

Harry strolled in with perhaps the biggest grin he's ever sported on his face, which a slap to the head from Lavender quickly removed. Spotting his command, he headed over with her in tow. Trying to keep a stupid little smile of his face Harry sat down next to Hagrid who looked much better, though still sporting a bandage on his forehead, on his left.

Lavender taking his immediate right, across from the table his 1st Sergeant, who was searching for the mysteries of the universe in his cup of coffee, sat next Senior Lt. Creevey. Apparently a night with skelegrow and he was good as new, give or take a few bruises.

The 4 remaining platoon Lieutenants and their respective sergeants, filled in around them making and impromptu command council, with the remainder of the company filling the table down either end.

Conversation was minimal while the while the men and women of Company A ate with a single minded focus of someone who knew the value of enjoying a good meal before something came along to interrupt it….Like the salutations of a junior officer.

"Good morning Captain! If you don't mind me saying so, sir, getting a bit of a late start this morning!" Came down the table from Harry's right.

A young man with dark brown hair and light blue eyes looked up at him with a general warmth and cheeriness that had not place at a morning mess table. 2nd Lt. Thomas Silverton, was a 21 year old fresh out of OCS when the company started its latest deployment last February. He currently had command of the company's 2nd shield platoon. General scuttlebutt said he has the soild makings of a good officer, after he seasoned up a bit.

He'd apparently gotten a "head" start on that, as displayed by the bandage still wrapped around his head, he also managed to get nailed with a fel guard's axe yesterday pulling one of his shielder's safely out of the way when his tower cracked. His helmet took most of the blow, saving his skull, but it knocked him out cold and he had to be carried to the portkey.

The small smirks from most of the surrounding troops indicated that he wasn't aware of the details of little trap they had laid form him, that he'd just verbally blundered into.

With a little quirk to his lips and a gentle squeeze to an already bristling Ssgt. Brown's thigh to keep her from snarling he simply shot him a grin. "Just following Doctor's orders, we laid down some heavy magic the other day. They want us to make sure we get plenty of rest to recover."

The completely open look of belief is almost painful to look at on his face, as the clueless junior officer nods in acceptance. He could leave it at that but taking in the less than pleased looks he decided to push it a bit to help the poor lad out. "Besides! Last thing I want is to get Staff Sergeant Brown out of sorts because I wasn't using my bunk enough." Several spit takes and chuckles resonated down the table as Harry peruses.

Tension broken small conversations quickly fill the table, quite pleased with himself, Harry enjoys the look on the confused yet happy look on Silverton's face as he watches mirthfully, the men around him wiping off their shirts. He's just preparing to return to his meal, when a quick glace over to WO2 Widerberg and his shit eating grin is enough to make him feel queasy.

A glance to his right confirms his suspicions, it is subtle but the tightness around her flinty blue eyes is enough to confirm that Potter has officially ruined his appetite.

Suppressing a sigh at the discussion he's going to be having tonight that he can only blame himself for, he looks over to the XO. "What's on the agenda today Colin?" Quickly swallowing a bit omelet, addressed Senior Lt. fishes into his hip pocket for his field journal, or rather his self professed "black book o' answers."

With the breakdown in modern communications, the military had to rely on other methods to quickly and effectively distribute information. Inside Avalon the government and private citizens have the convience of two way mirrors, and the recently developed "floo-phone". Neither of these is particularly useful for an army on the march, especially between units in the same local command.

Currently, most field commands make due with the old tried and true method of runners with notes. With the fall back to more traditional infantry tactics, battle standards made a comeback as well. As standard practice in the field, someone with operation command authority is was always near the flag, often the CO, but officer or NCO who can make a call for the unit will do in a pinch.

Since the environment of a battle field is chaotic at best, and could have dozens of runners seeking out various individuals, it was standard practice to have them simply head for the unit's standard, and let the commander sort it out from there. In camp, the flags were either stored or put up in a formation by the command HQ, so runners instead were directed to the unit XO making them in effect the company answering service.

Taking a minute to read over the amalgamated entries from last night and this morning; "uh, let's see. Not too much, we are to report to the base Bursars office for combat pay allotments at 1100, we are officially on leave as of 1300, and that's it I think….oh wait, General Steele wants to meet with you at 1230 hours to um 'Discuss his suggestions for your company staff issues?'"

Colin looked up in confusion, only for his eyes to widen at the look of fury barely contained behind a quickly crumbling mask of discipline. Looking around he could see the other collected officers and NCO's were just as confused and shocked as he was, no one had mentioned staffing changes to him.

Standing up with his fist clenched at his sides Harry, in a clipped barely suppressed anger in his tone, "with me, now". Stalking off, to a small room at the back of the mess hall, the others only take a second to look at each other before he's quickly followed by the five officers and three NCO's.

**1st****Avalon Divisional Command Tent, Formation Parade Grounds, Channel Operations Command (former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 5th, 2010, 9:30 GMT.**

Inside a somewhat spacious 25 by 100 foot long tent, sitting arrayed along the parameter was every officer Senior Lieutenant and up from the various commands of the 1st Avalon Division. At the moment they were all witnessing the somewhat gruff dressing down of a somewhat battered looking 2nd Lieutenant from the Longhorn Outrider Scout Company.

When the young junior officer had mentioned they so easily routed due to the lack of infantry support. Steele tore into him about the "shame this was the caliber of officer we were producing today, that they could be flustered by having to do something on their own without a senior commander to wipe their ass for them"

Harry was sitting next to his XO Senior Lieutenant Creevey and alongside the other unit commanders of the Griffin's Guards Regiment, as they watched the "debriefing". As the man continued his tirade, Harry couldn't watch his opinion of the many lower steadily the longer he ranted. Surprising him, considering how low his opinion of the man was after yesterday.

"Old iron belly" as dubbed by the ever prophetic company 1st Sgt. Widerberg, a veteran tank commander hailing back from the Persian gulf war in 1991, the man had apparently had failed to truly embrace the new tactics lacking the aid of armored assault vehicles making him borderline incompetent. The slaughter of the scouts' riders is a classic example.

Still living in an age where "scouts" consisted of a Bradley fighting vehicle or an up armored Humvee, he apparently hasn't quite grasped that you cannot send scouting elements out on their own and use them as light infantry to fight their way out of any engagements.

Successful open field combat these days for the line companies worked very similar to Harry's regiment. Infantry units armed with leather reinforced Iron armor and tower ward shields would form an overlapping shield wall supported by pikes for the massed charges of the horde to break upon. While behind them a series of ranks of "boomstick infantry" would rain down destructive magic, in a far more effective version of archery of old. Include support by a "mage artillery" force and you have formation strong enough to grind down a demon host and of taking down up to Dread Lord with ease.

At least until you draw the attention of a Pit Lord.

In contrast to this heavy force you have the lighter support elements that aren't suited for direct conflict. Given mobility via horseback, and for the sake of speed and endurance, the scout cavalry lacked heavy armor or weaponry that would allow them to engage any sizable demon force.

The TDF mk.1 while a revolutionary piece of equipment did have several limitations, two major ones being; it was over a meter long, making it a bit unwieldy, and it had significant kick back when fired. Concerns about the length being hard to manage on horseback, while at the same time worried the kickback would dismount a rider, meant that they weren't issued to calvary.

Instead R&D in 2008 cooked up the TDF Mk.3 "carbine". Half the length of the TDF 1, making it friendlier for horseback use, the drawback would be that due to less length to run Telsa stamping on. This would translate directly, it lower rate of fire. The concept cooked up to offset this was to go with a double shafted design, like a shotgun. In practice this allowed for a close to but slightly lesser rate of fire as standard meter long version, and while lowering the kickback, it only had about half the power of the mk.1.

This in turn meant a blast that would normally break the bones or punch through Demon hide, would instead merely knock it down, or simply cause it to stumble a bit. Still somewhat useful since it would allow the scout to gain some distance from pursuit, it also meant they were almost useless in a straight up fight. Harry had heard there was discussion creating a Lancer corps, a sort of heavy Calvary, but so far nothing had come of it.

With the breakdown of modern non magical communications, and the ever increasing deteriorating state of the freehold enclaves leading to the increase in "blindspots" out in the open territories; a group of quick riders to send messages and get an idea of what occurring around your field command is priceless, just like it had been for hundreds of years before radio and satellites.

What it boiled down to is had, Steele been bothered to detail heavy infantry units as pickets mid field to hold the tunnel, supported by the ENTIRE Griffin regiment, while the scouts withdrew, it's likely that loses would have been greatly reduced.

Instead he left the scouts out in the breeze, leaving them one company of artillery to support. If Harry had known what was to come of yesterday's arrangement, he would have borrowed a lot more than boomsticks from the Regiment, command authorization be damned.

'_No the fault for yesterday laid directly at Steele's feet. Not that the blowhard was going to believe that. I mean sure he had to pool his limited resources, only had a whole DIVISON at his command! __It wasn't like he had to be sparring in use of mage's either, there are only seven companies worth in the regiment. An a completely separate set of seven more in the OTHER mage support regiment'_

His stock dipped a few more points as he lectured the 2nd Lieutenant, the scout company's 5th in command (and only officer who was still alive), for failing to call in for direct support from Harry's company to provide cover as soon as they began to be overrun and drive the enemy back to allow for a staged withdrawal.

Harry repressed a snort for that idea, for all the reputed strength of Harry's company they might as well have been throwing snowballs at that Pit Lord. It was at this point that the Captain remembered a very important fact; General Steele probably didn't know much of this at all.

The 1st Division used to be commanded by General White, he was killed outside Paris when an Abomination strike rained down on his command post in mid July. "Old Iron Belly" wasn't just a former tanker; he was one of the LAST tankers. While it's true most pre-invasion technology was abandoned as magical interference rendered it ineffective, many of the military vehicles were designed to work in the event of a nuclear war, giving them some level of protection.

What finally did them in was as the Legion advanced into the Middle East, Asian, and Central America the oil supply dried up; Tanks while wonderful creations, use a lot of fuel. The last tank squadrons in the Avalon arsenal had been held in reserve at a base called Fort Pandora; on the western Welsh coast near new island capital. The last ones were sent to be scrapped for their iron and copper in June.

Harry shook his head, _'I've really have to get Hermione to talk about something other than work when we have dinner, although it beats the glare she shoots me whenever Lavender AND Pravati join us'_

The general didn't assume field command till July 25th only a day or two before final preparations had to be made for the withdrawal. Which means he probably only had time to read over the standard briefing documents that were meant to quickly bring newly converted officers up to speed.

And from what Harry had been able to skim, were full of inaccuracies, the carbines were a great example. According to the "experts" in R&D the shortened blasting rod rifle, was able to generate enough magical force to take down a standard Succubus lesser demon in one to two shots do to their thin hides and limited physical strength when compared to other demon forms.

The truth was Demon Succubi were damn spry; Harry had personally witnessed one shrug off three standard strength simultaneously fired blasts. Their thin skin was offset by an extra flexibility; their bodies often bend when they should break. Not that one could blame the R&D folks, it's not like there are a lot of Demons to test with in Avalon these days.

With this in bit his tongue, and reserved his opinion regarding their commander until he had a chance to quietly fill him in on a few lesions learned. Maybe help not sound like such an idiot and save what face he still had with the troops.

**1st****Avalon Divisional Command Tent, Formation Parade Grounds, Channel Operations Command (former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 5th, 2010, 10:45 GMT.**

Harry's chance finally came after the staff meeting gratefully began to break up, much to the silent thanks of the entire office corps. After his drawn out brow beating of the young Calvary officer for nearly 30 minutes, the '_man far too in love with his own voice'_ , then felt the need to spend the next 45 lecturing the entire command staff on how the lack of discipline and fear of the enemy was going to be the death of everyone of them, which was making him seriously question if he should bother offering his insights.

Harry wasn't the only officer fighting the urge to scoff or laugh at the man, 1st Avalon had been in the thick of fighting for the entire 3 years of the major European withdrawal, fighting series of holding actions all the way from the ruins of Vienna, through Paris and finally at the tunnel entrance. The only time they spent out of the fighting, a basic rotation that would see 2 or 3 companies rotate out for a month to Avalon.

In the three year campaign the average trooper spent two on the line, at least the ones that didn't succumb to the roughly 20% casualty rate anyway. Being lectured about courage and resolve by a man who spent the same time sitting on a beach in Wales, well it was more than a little offensive.

As the other officers gleefully made their escape out of the tent, Harry once again pushed down his personal feelings, and reminded himself that he was doing what was best for the men. With a gesture to Colin to follow the rest of the officers, Harry didn't want to potentially embarrass the man with an audience, or seem like he was ganging up on him.

Stepping up to the respectful distance, Harry snapped to attention his heels clicking together with a resounding "clack" that seemed to echo in the now empty tent. Waiting for the man to acknowledge him Harry had some time to really study his new "boss".

General Steele was a heavyset man, while there was no official weight requirements in Avalon, most fighters were expected to have a basic level of fitness. Again it wasn't strictly enforced do to shortages of experienced professionals, but it was unusual to see someone so borderline unfit. His hair was as grey as his name could imply, and had started to thin a bit on top.

He wore the standard grey/green suburban camo battledress that was standard for the Division; though a little snug due to his girth they were almost immaculate in how crisp they were, almost like they had never been worn before. The single silver star of a Brigadier General was on his collar, and the blue and silver castle covered with 4 stairs on the band covering left shoulder, completed the decoration.

By contrast, Harry still had slight bags under his eyes from his exhaustion of yesterday, his uniform nearly identical, if a bit ruffled, and worn in places where his armor rubbed as he moved. Gold double bar on his color denoting his rank as unit commander and captain, his sleeves were rolled up to just under the omni-present gold griffin and tower on a blood red field was the only part of his uniform that even approached looking new. That is due to the pile of preservation and cleaning charms imbedded in each band made. As always his hair was a bit wild but not really offensively so due to the short military style cut.

After an short yet indeterminate number of minutes Steele finally jotting down whatever notes he was making, and placing his pen down, lazily looked up, "Something I can help you with….Captain?" The delay was the number of seconds it took the man to locate Harry's rank insignia, the questioning tone at the end of his name clearly indicating he had no idea whom Harry was.

Considering he'd ordered him to almost die yesterday, mocked his actions during the debriefing, and still didn't know what he'd looked like was really not helping his image to Harry.

"Potter, Able company, Griffin's Guards Regiment, sir" Harry snapped off reflexively in a even metered response that only years of training can instill. Recognition finally sparked in the General's along with something Harry couldn't identify. "Yes Captain, what is it?" The dismissive tone returned similar to how he had address the Cavalryman during the debriefing.

This was going about as well Harry had feared, Steele seemed almost pained to have to be speaking to him. "Well sir, I was hoping I might be able clear up any confusion from the reports, I know command didn't have much time to appoint a replacement for General White after Paris, and with the last of the Division redeploying tomorrow I just wanted to clear up any lingering issues while we have a moment." He tried to keep his tone as natural and respectful as possible, especially as the general's look of distain was increasing to a scowl the longer he spoke.

"Ah, I see…..well since you've brought it up Captain, I've been made aware of certain issues concerning your command that I'd like to address now that we have a moment, as you say." The venom loaded into that statement was impossible to be mistaken for anything else. Still Harry hadn't been made aware of any issues during his visits to central command or from his immediate superiors, so it the confusion in his tone was genuine. "Issues sir?"

"Oh yes, you see over the course of my last command defending this nation while you were busy running around the continent mockingly playing solider, I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of the father of one your former school peers." Harry worked hard to fight down the urge to deck this man who was now being openly antagonistic; the only outward sign of this conflict was a faint tick in his cheek as he clamped his jaw. "At first I was loathe to believe that such a reported upstanding officer would be capable of the things he told me. But after yesterday's fiasco, I have little doubt that Mr. Malfoy was quite correct to warn me about you."

Harry bit back a curse, Lucius Malfoy had already managed to ruin his son's life with his schemes and drive his wife away, but apparently he wasn't done trying to ruin lives and get petty revenge. Biting back his desired scathing tone, "Is that a fact sir".

"Indeed Captain, the several years I spent pissing away the last great combat resources of this nation playing guard to politicians, I was treated to the stories of the vaunted "Potters Prowlers" and how you were single handledy stemming the tide of the demon advance. Why I lost count how many times I had to hear how the mighty wizard artillery had rendered we old fossils in our metal coffins completely pointless!" His tone was now exactly like when he was tearing down that junior officer early. "but if you and your merry little band are so fantastic than, explain to me how my Calvary managed to play 'charge of the light brigade' under your heroic watch!" At his point he had slammed his hand down on the table breaking the pen he was holding in half.

While not entirely sure about this morning, Harry was certain this man was now trying to bully him. The difference this time is that Harry wasn't a wet behind the ears newly minted 2nd Lieutenant. Less than twenty four hours ago he was staring down a Pit Lord followed shortly by his Dread Lord Boss. Worse than that, this man's only poor grasp of the tactial situation cost them more than 300 lives, but also directly responsible for the loss of Delacour and his men. Who weren't even supposed to be engaged in the first place.

It was going to take more than some trumped up playground insults by a bitter old man to break him down. Judging by the red starting to creep up his neck, it was obvious that he realized this fact as well. Harry couldn't keep his mind from comparing his Commanding officer who seemed to be laying blame everywhere but himself shouting to get his point across, to the sarcastic Frenchman who calmly accepted that he and his men would be sacrificed so Harry's could escape.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt the price was too high, if someone like that had to die so that he could listen to this asshole. Letting his thoughts run wild, Harry had completely missed that last several minutes of Steele's rant.

Coming back into the moment, he could see the general had shouted himself out, signs of fury stressing the edges of his face eased slightly. "well if you don't have readymade excuses to blow smoke up my ass like you have to be doing to the staff at Centcom, how bout we actually get something productive out of this meeting you have so kindly offered me, hmm?"

By this point Harry was actually impressed that a man could rise to the rank of general and still act this childish. He had a suspicion forming that the "disgraced" Lucius Malfoy managed to use some of that influence he supposedly no longer has to help that along. "What nothing to say? I thought you were going to take me under your wing and teach me all there is to being a soldier, as if I wasn't out protecting this land before you were even born!" By this point he was standing both hands braced on the camp desk leaning forward in what Harry supposed was to be an intimidating pose. "You think because you spent some time learning in a castle, you'd know more about warfare me?!"He simply maintained the relaxed attention he assumed when he first approached Steele.

'Ah of course', After the ICW slaughter, when Albus Dumblodore brought Grindelwald to Hogwarts, he started the ball rolling on a transformation. When Harry first went to Scotland in 1991, Hogwarts was the premier school in England for teaching magic. Arming its students with the tools they'd need to be successful in the world.

As the world went down the tubes, it slowly transformed and many things changed, but much like it had for 1000 years it still provided students with the tools they needed. Hogwarts today, oversees the training of not only every war mage in service, but the bulk of the military officers. Even though many of them can't wield magic, they can get a basic grounding in theory so they know how to best utilize those resources can under their command. As an added bonus every cadet that goes through Hogwarts gets a through grounding in Runes.

With siege wards, tower shield wards, floo-phones, mirror communicators and the TDF's that alone is quickly putting the traditional service academies out of the market. Some like the Royal Army Academy Sandhurst have swallowed their pride decided to support the nation, and in that case have shifted to training NCO's and helping retrain milita units. Other institutions and especially alumni are extremely fighting the changes tooth and nail.

Judging by the ring on the General's finger its easy to take a guess what camp he's in.

Sitting back down, "fine then, no excuses for your abysmal performance, no secret pearls of wisdom to impart, let's talk about your command staff then, for the sake of getting to the heart of the matter we'll ignore that hulking security risk you call a corporal, and start with Staff Sergeant Brown." He bit last bit with a definite sneer.

Focusing on calm thoughts as best he could Harry managed to only have a slight strain to his tone, "what about Staff Sergeant Brown, sir?" The man somehow managed to convey disbelief while sneering at the same time, somehow. "I don't know how White ran things, but did you honestly think that you could keep and have the army pay for your own personal whore?!"

The cracking from Harry's knuckles grinding in fists at his side could easily be heard, it took all his control to stamp down on his rage and not burn this man down where he sat, literally. "I don't know what you have been told Sir, but Staff Sergeant Brown is an accomplished war mage, and a valuable part of the Company." The tone was low and guttural, but Harry was simply happy that he had kept the obscenities out of it.

A sparkle of glee seemed to appear in his eyes; "Well if she's as talented as you say she is, maybe I should assign him to work on _my staff_" One would have to be a deaf idiot miss the innuendo attached to that statement.

This time Harry doesn't bother to suppress the growl, "Sir if you so much as consider laying a hand on the Sergeant, I'll assure you. It will be the last thing you use it for….ever." 'Well so much for trying to remain professional' at this point Harry could care less.

The glee has turned into a full on look of triumph, "is that a fact Captain?" Putting particular emphasis on his rank he looks at him a mock pity manner. "Do you know what the penalty for threatening a superior officer is Captain?"

Worming through the wall of hate, small trickle of fear works its way down his spine; he walked right into that one. 'Dammit potter your playing his game, what are you 12 again?' However after a moment the finely honed situation awareness kicks in. He ignores the threats, forgets the jibs and veiled insults and remembers the most important fact of the last several minutes. It's just the two of them, there are no witnesses. Neither one of them can make any charges because there is no one to act as a neutral third; it's his word against Steele's.

Collected his wits he, balls up his emotion and wills the bile back down his throat one last time, "I'm sorry? What do you mean Threaten? I was simply imparting advice that you asked for. At least that was my intent; regrettably there isn't anyone else here to double check that is what I did."

After spending half a second focused on the fact that Harry had dropped the honorific in his response, the point he was stressing struck home. For all intents and purposes this exchange didn't occur because there is no one else here to corroborate. Even his divisional staff had fled out after the meeting. Glaring at the smug look on Potter's face, it only turns back into a full scowl, as he turns around and walks away without so much as a salute.

**Annex room C, Base Mess Hall, Channel Operations Command (former city of Folkestone, Kent) September 6th, 2010, 8:30 GMT**

Harry was staring down at the ground trying to quietly vent his frustration, at how poorly he handled that exchange. In hindsight had he even bothered to simply keep Colin with him, they'd currently be seeing the General recalled to Central Command for a fitness evaluation. Lavender had given up any sense of decorum, and was quietly rubbing small circles on Harry's back while whispering softly into his ear, while he'd wrapped an arm around her waist pulling her closer. Any issues from earlier she obviously shelved for the bigger problems.

The other occupants' of the room stood in the small room in muted shock. It wasn't that any of them doubted the Captain in the least, but to hear of a Brigadier General acting in such a selfish and petty manner. While you might occasionally see such behavior in new junior officers, it would be stamped out quickly. Or the officer in question would like loose his commission. The fact that he managed to hide such traits or beat out other potentials in advancement, with them just seemed impossible.

Then again, over the last decade and a half, militaries worldwide had suffered such high rates attrition that there really wasn't anyone else. Had someone asked, half the people currently standing in that room couldn't imagine being in the army if the situation wasn't so dire, the Captain included. So the fact that he was an already experienced and relatively proven officer, it wouldn't take someone just pushing a little bit, to have the selection board focus on his experience and not his personality. The fact he feels marginalized and is completely out of his depth probably didn't even come up in the rush to fill the command slot for 1st Division.

"Well that probably explains all the new faces at chow this morning." The group looked over to Lt. Silverton but it was Harry that voiced the question, "what new faces?"

Clearing his throat under the sudden attention, "Well as I said sir, you got a late start this morning . I was one of the first down for chow, at about quarter past 6 this whole batch of junior officers were there at a table across the room."

Now curious where he was going with this Harry prompted him, "no offense Silverton, but this is an army base, troops come and go all the time." The Lieutenant nods to concede the point, "Yes sir, but the thing is, none of these guys had regimental tags." A lazy wave of his right hand his golden griffin to reinforce his point. "I don't think I've seen troops without em' since I left OCS."

"You wouldn't, those bands aren't just for show, their dedicated friend or foe tags, only way to get through the ward line in an infantry shield wall is with one of those keyed to you, everything else gets cooked." WO2 Widerberg threw out into the conversation. "s'why they make you wear'em like dog tags in the field."

"Oh that doesn't bode well at all," Lt. Creevey finally joined in, "I doubt it's a lucky accident that the day after you demonstrate the General has no support to drum you out of the Division, a whole new crop of officers appear that have no history with the men."

"But w'aht he g'unna get done? 'ts not like the 'igwigs are g'unna let 'arry ga 'way even if he's outta the comp'nay" They all pause a moment and not just to puzzle out Hagrid's thick accent that had seemed only get more obscure as the years went on. The gentle giant rarely aired his thoughts these days, but when did it was a good idea to listen.

Lavender's smooth gravel chipped in, "He's got a point, Harry could probably start hacking down people in the streets on Sundays and higher ups would still find a way to spin it so they could keep him in the field." Harry looked at Lavender in a small amount of horrified shock. "what its true, you didn't think it was odd they just let you drag Hagrid and me into your little camp without so much as a raised eyebrow?"

"The idea that I'd go anywhere where they wouldn't have you never even crossed my mind." The completely lost way he had said it, reinforced that for Harry that was simply a statement of fact, if Lavender couldn't go there, harry had no interest in it. Lavender just stared at him blankly for a minute, before grabbing his head and pulling him down for a soul pulling kiss, even the room full of wolf whistles and jeers took a minute to break them apart.

"Lady's got a point" the 1st sergeant added, with a chuckle "not that I'm gunna kiss your ugly mug too"

"Yeah, and now that I really think about it sir" now it was Colin's turn to fidget under the attention, realizing what he just implied to himself "uh….I mean we've basically operated as battalion on detached command more times than I care to remember maybe it's time to ask for a raise."

That managed to lighten the mood a bit if the chuckles were any indication, "its not the worst idea we've ever pulled off." Harry rubbed his scar as he pondered it. "You think they'd go for it, jumping over Steele's head, letting us get out from under his thumb, _and _reinforce us?"

Following the snort from the remaining platoon leaders who'd been rather quiet during the exchange, well aside from riding their CO's ass a bit. Harry raised an eyebrow at Silverton, "Hell sir word gets out 'Potter's Prowlers' are looking for recruits, commands gonna' be more worried about how to keep troopers in the other units, and not simply flocking into ours."

"Why would anyone go AWOL to join up with us?" The confusion on Harry's face and in his voice as almost too much to take without breaking up laughing, the others were shooting the young Lieutenant warning looks.

Yet Lt. Silverton in a complete repeat of his earlier performance he blithely charged forward, missing the obvious clues yet again. With a completely incredulous look, "You mean you don't know?"

The sound of Hagrid sucking wind through his teeth was the entire key needed for Silverton to know he's just stepped in it. He wasn't stupid, just a little cluesess. He had fight the reflexive urge to swallow under the piercing glad he was now on the reciving end of.

"Know what?" Harry's tone took on a hard edge demanding an answer without verbalizing. Silverton looked like he wanted to swallow his tongue, the other platoon leaders around him looked to be trying to sink into the walls. The tension was broken by Hagrid's deep bellied laugh. Silverton's quick glance was greeted by the combined sight of, Senior Lt. Creevey, WO2 Widerberg, and SSgt. Brown facepalmed.

**An:** Hope you like the redux version, I'm a bit happier with it...though i'm still finding grammer errors *shakes fist at the pagan god of english teachers!*

Anyway, now that i've sort of build my version of "cannon" i hopefully keep your eyes from bleeding from the long winded trains for thought down the line. On the other hand, it is kinda fun to invent world mechanics...*shrugs*

thanks for reading, VR


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